


The Soul of the Righteous

by RedCrossX



Category: Supernatural, Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Adventure, Age Regression/De-Aging, Aromantic Love, Brothers, Cute Characters Everywhere, Cute Dean, Determination, Fallen Children - Freeform, Fight Scenes, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Fun, Innocence, Introspection, Love, Monster Politics, Morality, No shipping over here, Other, Others to be added - Freeform, Pseudo Mother-Son Relationships, Soul Children, kid!Dean, missing tags because spoilers, music references, playful, probably, soul
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-15
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-04-26 12:48:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 21,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5005366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedCrossX/pseuds/RedCrossX
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What started with a goose-chase mountain climb leads to an adventure Dean never expected to find. From falling down a pit and expecting certain death to becoming a child in a brand new world filled with monsters, Dean might be a little over his head.  But what's Dean's response when the monsters aren't trying to kill him?<br/>With instincts like his in this nonsensical world, Dean's SOUL will be tested.</p><p> But the comforting touch of a mother's heart might make all the difference.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: A Long Way Down

“And it’s said that no one’s ever come back.” Sam explained in those early dawn hours. 

An old, dusty picture book was tucked under his arm as he hiked up the steep hillside. Dean trailed behind him. He brandished an old tree branch as support as he clambered behind his brother with steep shadows trailing under his eyes.

Dean growled, “So, you take that information, add a picture book and now we’re climbing a mountain before the sun’s up?” 

“We’ve jumped on smaller hunches than this. The strange thing is that I’ve never heard of this book before.”

“What’s so strange about that?”

“Well think, Dean. Most myths or stories or mysteries have many texts surrounding their origins. While our experiences have disproven many of those ideas…”

“Having only a kid’s book to go off of raises some alarms.”

Sam nodded as the ground finally levelled out beneath his feet. In comparison to some of the other great mountains of the country, Mount Ebott was relatively small and easy to climb. Even a small child could find their way up the hill with minimal difficulty.

Sam only walked a few steps forward before he came to a halt. Dean would’ve bumped into him had he not been paying attention.

“Hey Sammy, why’re we stopping?” Dean asked as he came up beside Sam.

It was then he noticed the massive pit in front of them. There was barely any space on top of the mountain before the ledge became darkness. In the dim light of the early morning, Dean’s sight could not pierce the maw of darkness that reached hungrily towards the two humans.

“Woah,” Dean gaped, “This like a volcano or something?”

Sam’s eyes were stuck on the hole like it was eating his soul, “I… don’t know. I mean, a volcano doesn’t really make sense…”

“Right.”

“…but I haven’t heard anything about this. It just seems strange that no one’s blocked it up or sealed it away.”

“Well it solves the mystery of where those kids went.” Dean shook his head as his brain painted pictures of heads bouncing off rocks and skulls cracking in two.  
His spine shivered. 

Sam glanced downward, “I wouldn’t mind taking a closer look…”

“Sammy,” Dean glared at his brother, “You have a death wish or something. I’d like it if we weren’t known as ‘The Hunters Done in by a Pit”. Look, kids fell down, heads cracked, the end.”

Sam’s foot was already stepping towards a root before Dean yanked him backward like a suburban mom tugging her kid in a Walmart.

“Damn it, Sammy! Be careful!”

“Dean!” Sam snapped, “What’s going on with you? It's not like we haven’t done stuff like this before.”

“Yeah, but we usually have more proof before we jump headfirst into a death hole!”

Dean stomped forward, the dirt under his foot shifted, but he didn’t notice.

“I’m just saying we should check it out.”

“And I’m sayin’ we should leave!”

A crack snapped the tension. Dean glanced down at his shoes and the ground beneath them. Suddenly his thick jacket felt a little heavier. 

A voice in his head was telling him he was going to have a bad time. 

“Dean, c’mon. We came all the way up here. We may as well check it out!”

“Forget it, Sammy. We’re headed-“

The moment Dean turned to leave, the ground gave way beneath him. The branch in his hand reached frantically for a hold in the soft dirt as he started tumbling downward.

“DEAN!”

Before he knew what was happening, Dean was tumbling into darkness. The light above his head grew smaller and smaller until it winked entirely out of existence. There was a brief moment, lasting only a few seconds, where he felt like he passed through a layer of water, and then the light was gone. He didn’t really have time to scream as he was processing before his consciousness started to flicker. Was this the end? Was a pit actually going to be his deathbed? 

Those were his last thoughts before an extreme drowsiness overpowered the stress and the fear. A soft blanket of peace fell over him as his eyes fell shut and his body went numb. 

Mid-fall, he passed out. Seconds later, a transformative light circled him. His heartbeat echoed through the pit.

And within that light, Dean Winchester started to shrink.

 

UNDER<3TALE


	2. Howdy!

Dean rubbed at his eyes as grogginess lay over him like a heavy cloud. He felt like someone had taken a jackhammer to his head, but when he felt the spot, he found that someone had placed a small bandage there.

Something was off. At first, Dean couldn’t really tell what was going on, but he felt… vulnerable. He shivered in the deep darkness of his cave, but when he looked up, there was only a small spot of light shining down on his spot.

He retraced what happened. He was arguing with Sam about the pit in Mount Ebott, the ground collapsed underneath him…

Crap, he should be dead! There was no way anyone could survive a fall that deep! Was he dead? It seemed like it was possible.

Then again, the pain in his skull seemed real enough to prove he was alive. 

He gathered his bearings. He found what was left of his walking stick shattered on the ground in a patch of golden flowers. Their smell was sickly sweet. It was relatively pleasing, but there was something to their odor that put Dean on edge. He reached for his coat pocket, but he soon realized this jacket was nowhere to be found. 

In fact, his outfit was completely different from the clothes he wore before he fell. His shirt was striped, red-and-blue with one of those dumb pockets, and instead of jeans he was wearing grey cargo shorts. The shirt was soft, and cotton-like. 

Vaguely Dean recalled wearing something similar as a child. Was he eight or nine then? It was too foggy to remember. His whole memory seemed a little foggy. 

It wasn’t as though things had been erased, they were just… dulled. All of the dealings with demons, his time in Hell… all that pain was there, just numb to his heart. Yet, the moment he started to think about it, his eyes began to tear up. Hell was painful. And scary. He hadn’t felt it that way before, yet now it made him want to curl up in bury himself in the field of flowers.

Snap out of it, Dean. His dad’s voice echoed in his head. As usual, the ghost of his father still pressed at his senses.

Right. He thought. Focus on the plan. Get back to Sam, and get out of here.

Dean took a deep breath, grabbed the stick off the ground, and marched forward. The flowers lead down a flat path… strangely, it look as though someone had paved it with stones. Had others been down here before? Regardless, Dean did not see another way to leave the cavern. He marched down the path and stared hesitantly as it led through an archway. The sculpting was immaculate and carefully prepared, but again it only rose more questions.

Who was around to build these things?

“Howdy!”

Dean lifted the stick upwards, brandishing it the same way he would brandish a knife. His eyes were wild and frantic as they spun all over the place.

Finally, they settled on the centre of the room, where a solitary golden flower sat on a small patch of grass. Light lit the grass patch, probably through some hole in the ceiling, but Dean was focused on something different.

The flower had a face.

“Wh-what?” Dean stammered and his hands shook.

Why was he so nervous? He’d fought things scarier than some talking flower. So far, the flower seemed to be leaving him alone anyhow.

“I’m Flowey!” The flower exclaimed. 

Now Dean was sure it was talking.

“Flowey?” He asked. His hand fell to his side as he stepped forward hesitantly. Dean was used to a bit of tension in his body, but at this point he was a firework ready to go off. 

“Flowey the Flower!” The golden flower grinned. 

At this point, Dean was on the grass. His sneakers (Where did they come from?) squeaked against the damp soil. 

“D-Dean.” Dean responded.

“Dean, huh? Golly, you must be new to the Underground.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Dean mumbled, “What’s the Underground?”

The flower’s face remained stoic in that same smiley pattern. It seemed almost drawn on the surface. If its lips hadn’t been flapping, Dean would’ve mistaken it for some abandoned kid’s art project.

“Yeah, it must be confusing, ain’t it?” Flowey bobbed, “Well, somebody should probably show you how things work around here.”

“Uh, okay, sure.” Dean gulped. The edge of his tension fluttered away a little, leaving just a little space for him to regain his breath.

“Great!”

Suddenly, there was a sharp pain in Dean’s chest. He grasped at his rib cage as the shock brought tears to his eyes.

Then, a little heart flickered into existence in front of him. It was almost burning a deep red colour as it floated in front of Dean like some kind of shield. It wasn’t an anatomic heart or anything, just that little shape that love-struck teenagers would draw around the edges of someone’s name.

“What the…” Dean’s eyes were wide open. He felt at his chest, and he could still feel a beat that was moving twice as fast as normal.

“Hey!” Dean snapped, “What’s going on?”

“Sure is a feisty one…” Dean thought he heard the flower mumble, but it was so quiet he couldn’t tell for sure. Then its usual tone came back.

“You see that heart? That’s your SOUL! The very culmination of your being!”

Dean raised an eyebrow. His hand gripped the stick a little tighter as that sickeningly-sweet smell of the flowers grew stronger in the room. 

But then he focused on the heart in front of him, and suddenly he realized how true it was. The heart was his SOUL: an extension of himself. When he willed it to move, it moved in whichever direction he wanted, even as his mind wandered other places.

This is what Cas saw all those times? This is what Sam was missing a few years ago? Seeing it in front of his face in this form was almost anti-climactic, although he thought there might’ve been more to it than at first glance.

“Okay… why is my soul floating outside my body?” Dean asked.

He felt his muscles tightening.

“Just the way it works down here… Okay, so your SOUL is pretty… weak right now, but it’ll grow stronger if you get more LV.”

Dean’s soul was weak? What happened to being the righteous man with the powerful soul? 

Then again, maybe it had something to do with how he’d been feeling. Physically he felt weaker. Smaller somehow. Maybe this flower knew what he was talking about. Maybe he’d lost LV somehow.

“What does LV stand for?” Dean asked. Flowey smiled.

“Why, LOVE, of course!”

“Seriously?” Dean groaned.

“Of course! You can get more LOVE by collecting…”

The pause in Flowey’s speech was very noticeable.

“Friendliness pellets!”

As the flower spoke, little white dots started hovering in the air behind the flower. He couldn’t describe the dots other than their energy was kind of similar to his SOUL. IT was almost like he was looking into another plane of existence. 

“So, I collect these ‘friendliness pellets’,” Dean air-quoted, “and it raises my ‘LOVE?’”

“That’s right! So use your SOUL and collect as many as you can!”

The white dots started spinning towards Dean, and in hopes to make his SOUL stronger, he willed his SOUL towards the pellets with bright eyes and lifted spirits.

Then pain like barbed wire gouging his skin struck his body all at once. His whole body staggered and shivered.

His eyes fell to Flowey, whose drawn-on face had disappeared. In its place was a vile, vicious face. Its eyes glared at him with a fanged grin.

“Wh-What?” Dean stammered. He panted heavily as his SOUL floated back in front of him. Its glow seemed to flicker as Dean’s muscles ached.

“You. IDIOT.” Flowey snarled, “In this world, it’s kill or BE killed.”  
Memories of Dean’s experiences flashed by. The flower was right. Every monster he saw on the surface always took advantage of every situation in order to kill someone else.

Maybe Dean had gone soft. There were nice monsters, but they’d only made him feel worse about everything. 

Even as he thought about what Sam might say, about giving people second chances, his father’s words still bounced around his brain:  
“Shoot first, ask questions later.”

Dean glanced up at the flower. It still stared at him with its wicked fascination.

“Well then…”

The pellets spiked up in a circle Dean and his SOUL. The dots made an impenetrable wall that Dean wasn’t sure he could escape.

“DIE.”

The dots moved closer. Dean knew that he probably wouldn’t survive the next hit.

He made one slip-up. He should’ve killed it the moment he saw it. Now it was too late. This stupid plant was going to eradicate him.

Then, as Flowey’s cackles bounced around the cave, and the death circle pulled in closer and closer. Dean closed his eyes.

But the death he expected never came. Even Flowey’s laughter stopped.

Dean opened his eyes just in time to see a ball of fire fly at Flowey and send him flying away into the darkness. Dean’s pain faded away, and soon he was standing up once more. His SOUL floated around Dean like a halo as he wiped at the tears that somehow ended up on his eyes.

What he didn’t expect to see was a tall goat-like creature looming over him, staring at the place where the stupid flower once sat.

“What a terrible creature, torturing such a small, innocent youth.”

Suddenly, Dean felt rather nostalgic for someone he didn’t know he missed.  
Yet he still kept the stick gripped tight in his hands.


	3. A Warm Welcome

  
Dean looked upward with wild and wide eyes as he zoned in on the sparks dissipating from the goat lady’s hand. He scampered to his feet quickly, and cupped his SOUL in his hands. The heart was warm to the touch, and he could see the red glow reflecting off his hands. Carefully, he glanced up from behind his hands only to see almond-shaped eyes staring back at him.

And then he noticed he’d left his stick on the ground.

Crap. She might have knocked the flower away with her fancy magic fire, but that could mean anything.

The flower said it was kill or be killed.

“Do not be afraid, child. That thing won’t be bothering you anymore.”

Dean tucked his heart behind his back and grabbed his stick off the ground. He didn’t lift it towards the goat lady, however. He couldn’t swing it, but, the air she gave off different. She smelled nicer… she smelled like pie. And here presence already added warmth to the wide room.

“Who’re you?” Dean asked.

His bottom lip poked out in a pout as he looked up at the monster in the purple. He refused to let his guard down. Even as the monster bent down to his level, he gripped the stick firmly.

“I am Toriel. I’m the guardian of the Ruins.”

Dean said nothing. The stick was wedged firmly between the two of them like a safety before Toriel stepped back.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner. You’re the first person to visit in a long time.”

“More people came through here?” Dean asked quietly. His pout stayed firm.

Toriel paused for a moment. She looked unsure of how to respond, but there was also a glow of concern to her eyes.

“Here,” she closed her eyes for the moment, “Let me guide you through the catacombs, then maybe I can give you a better answer.”

While Dean’s trust was in low reserves, he glanced back to the path behind him. All there was to find was a small patch of grass and some more of those ugly flowers. The smell still made his stomach roll.

“Okay. But no BS, got it?” Dean stared directly at Toriel.

“I can do that if you promise to keep that language of yours in check, understand?”

Dean staggered, but gave a curt nod anyhow. He wasn’t used to being chastised like that. It remind him of his brother’s constant pestering…  
But the sternness reminded him of someone else. He couldn’t quite put a pin in it.

For all that he didn’t like being chastised, the action felt more like a warm touch than aa slap on the wrist.

“Good.” She smiled again, “Now follow me.”

Dean trailed close behind as the passed through a doorway similar to the gate at the front. The same intricate carvings decorated the doorway, but Dean could better make out a golden symbol that marked the centre. It was similar to the apron of Toriel’s dress. While curious, he decided to save it for later. She said she would answer his questions, and he didn’t have a choice otherwise.

They walked into the next room. Every few moments, Toriel would glance back. Was she waiting for him? Was she looking behind his back? Either way, as the walked up large steps towards the catacomb’s entrance, Dean had to step back and admire the image. Auburn leaves were scattered across the ground, and mighty stone steps rose towards the gate opening. He felt some kind of breeze flowing through the cavern as he glanced up the stairs.

If this was the way out, Dean was going to follow the path to its completion if it killed him.

Behind him, a yellow spark ignited at the centre of his SOUL before it flickered away.

He was filled with determination. Dean started marching up the stairs, and kept following the monster who was waiting at the top.

Only moments later they walked up to a blocked door.

“Oh, stay here, I’ll open this in a moment.”

Dean took a quick look around the room. Deep purple bricks lined the wall, and the floor was built with a similar material. He watched as Toriel walked over to the other side of the room, where several grey stones poked up above the rest.

Dean watched carefully as she walked through. In a strange, zig-zag pattern, she walked along the rocks. Each foot pressed against one of the elevated stones, and they sunk into the ground one by one.

Finally, the door slid open, and Toriel led the way once more. Her face still displayed a content smile as Dean followed behind her.

He was still keeping his distance, but Dean had decided against walking everywhere while holding up his stick. It was tiring on his arm, plus he could tell that this creature was different from the flower. At least, at face value they were different.

“The Ruins are riddled with Puzzles, which act as both diversions and door keys. Please get used to them, because they will help you navigate our home.”  
Dean nodded his response. He wasn’t against a good puzzle now and then. His bigger concern was how she was speaking. Did she say our home? He was so blindsided by her sincerity that he wasn’t sure he was hearing what he thought he was hearing.

He trailed right behind her. Never was he that far behind even as he examined the walls of the place around him. It gave off the air of an old castle, which was a surprising change of pace from the old cottages and houses he was used to invading.

“The next door is triggered by certain switches, and I want you to try navigating it. Don’t worry, I’ve labelled the switches to make this easy for you.”

Dean fumed at the patronizing action. Or… he thought he did. Like all of his memories and feelings, everything was a little frazzled. This tone and these actions felt normal to him, although he was sure he would’ve decked someone for treating him that way back on the surface.

Right?

Toriel walked to the exit of the room, where spikes poked out of the ground impeded their progress. He stepped over a small wooden platform, where a river passed through, and walked over to the wall, where two switches were both flipped in an upward position.

Yellow words were written on the wall. Someone had drawn out exactly how to pull down the correct switch in order to continue, down to a diagram of what it looked like in an upward and downward orientation.

Seriously?

Regardless, Dean rolled his eyes as he grasped the handle and pulled it down. He heard a distinct tch-thunk, and sure enough he saw that the spikes were gone when he looked back, and the tall goat lady was beaming with pride.

All he did was pull a switch.

As he started walking towards her, he heard a distinct croak behind him, but when he spun around there was nothing there.

Could it be hiding under the bridge?

Whatever. A frog wasn’t going to be hurting him any time soon.

As he walked forward, a white blur leaped over his head, and landed in front of him. Startled, Dean fell backwards and held up his stick. The stick shook in his hand frantically when Dean saw an interesting pattern on the frog’s stomach.

“H-hey, that’s kinda cool.” Dean whispered. The frog seemed to slow down a little as its cheeks turned red. It was strange to watch on an animal whiter than paper.  
Dean’s SOUL came out from behind him just as the frog looked ready to move. It prepared for a leap when Toriel took a few steps forward.

The glare she gave the frog could’ve taken down mountains. It slinked away quietly as she stared at it.

Then, without saying anything, she led him into the next room. It looked similar to every other room in the place, except for a lone stuffed… thing set up in the middle of the room.

“What’s that?” Dean asked.

Toriel came up next to him and led him forward, “It’s a training dummy.”

“A training dummy? Like, to beat up and stuff?”

“Well, I want you to try talking to it! There might be many others who might try to get in your way, and I want you to know how to defend yourself.”  
Dean rolled his eyes. As usual, this world was making less and less sense as time went by. Still… if he could get out of situations by talking…  
He stepped forward.

“Uh… hi.” He said, sheepishly.

Sure enough, the dummy stayed in place.

“Good job!”

Dean stared back at her with squinted eyes, but she was already moving into the other room. He rolled his eyes. The pacifist shtick really wasn’t what he was expecting, and despite his apparent reluctance, it was a nice change of pace from the constant bloodlust to which he was usually subject.

The image of chopping off a vampire’s head struck his brain for a moment. He shivered as he stepped into the other room.

There, he found a path twisting and curving, but he chose instead to follow Toriel down the hall. His only stop was to read a sign.  
“The western room mirrors the eastern room.”

Well, sounds easy enough. For now, Dean followed after Toriel… and was only a few steps away from falling onto a bed of spikes.

His eyes were wide when Toriel looked back and forth between the spikes and Dean. He stood awkwardly as the woman’s expression became difficult to read.

“Well… there is a puzzle here, but…” She mumbled, “Here, stay close to me.”

She grabbed Dean’s hand. His eyes went wide for a moment as his fingers felt through plush fur. Her hand was soft, almost like a plush toy. It reminded Dean of the various stuffed toys they had to pass on. Or the one the blanket he remembered from being a kid. He was actually kind of enjoying the affection this creature was showing him, not that he was going to say anything.

“How long have you been here?” Dean asked quietly as they stepped off the last spikes.

Toriel smiled, though her eyes held something different, “Long enough. At this point I could probably solve these puzzles backwards and forwards.”

“Wow.”  
  
“It’s been nice… sometimes.”

“Sometimes?”

“Hmm?” Toriel blinked, and then they walked into the next room.

She was hiding something. Dean squinted his eyes at her as she let go of his hand, but then they were in another room, this one looking like a long hallway.

Toriel stared down the hallway like it was a highway to hell. Dean looked up to the goat lady as his SOUL hovered in place in front of him.

“Dean, I have one challenge for you, okay? I’m sorry but you have to do this.”  
Dean stared at Toriel. What did she mean?

“I need you to walk to the end of this room by yourself. I’m very sorry.”

And she bolted. Dean spun around for a second in efforts of seeing where she was running off to, but when he got back on his feet, he was staring down to the end of the hallway with no Toriel in sight.

This was the challenge? Dean shook his hand and wandered down the hall. It was quiet, with only the sound of his feet clacking against the concrete. It was the first time he’d really been alone since he fell down here, and there were still so many questions.

_In this world, it’s kill or BE killed._

Was that true? Dean barely trusted anyone. Other than Sam and Cas, there were few people he could actively rely on. Then there was Toriel, whose actions he couldn’t comprehend. She was being so nice… was she just luring him into a trap? Was this whole thing just a way to gain his trust so she could kill him? Everything had been far more confusing since he came here, and he still didn’t quite understand why his emotions were all heightened, and why he felt so… exposed.

He was close to the end of the hallway when he noticed a pillar sitting at the edge of the room. He could’ve sworn he saw something behind it.

Sure enough, getting closer revealed that it was actually Toriel. Dean snickered quietly. She really couldn’t bear to leave him alone.

“Made it.” Dean said, to no one in particular, though it was only a moment later when Toriel emerged, “Were you hiding there this whole time?”

“Yes,” Toriel nodded, “But I’m proud of you. I’m sorry for testing you like this.”

“Really?” Dean blinked.

Toriel laughed. Her laugh pushed away the darkness in the room; it was so bright.

“Yes. You see, I was testing your independence, because I need to go and prepare something.”

She got down to Dean’s level, and placed a hand on the back of his head. Her soft hand scratched the back of his head, and it made him want to purr. Again, he couldn’t quite put his finger on why this felt so familiar.

“Here, take this.”

She handed Dean a small black thing. It wasn’t until he grabbed it that he realized what it was.

“A cell phone?” Dean tilted his head, “We get reception down here?

“The Underground has its town network,” Toriel explained, “But the reason I am giving this to you is because I need to leave you on your own for a while. Can you stay here and wait for me? I promise I won’t be long.”

Dean flipped open the phone, and saw that it was a basic flip-phone, but one number had a tiny sticker on it in the shape of a snail.

When he pressed it, the name “TORIEL” came up on the screen.

His heartbeat slowed when he saw it. He wasn’t scared of being without her. That was ridiculous.  
But he couldn’t deny that knowing he could still call her made him feel a little better.

“Okay…” Dean mumbled, ending with a sniffle.

Toriel tapped the tip of his nose with her hand. “Then be good.”

With a final smile she left, delving deeper into the ruins. Dean rubbed the phone before moving over to a pile of red leaves, like the rest of the leaves in the tunnels. In a moment of bliss, he tumbled into the leaves and listen to the crackly sound they made as he flipped open his phone and rubbed the snail sticker.

The rustling leaves filled him with determination, and his SOUL flickered gold once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long-ish chapter here. I don't have a set schedule for this, I'm just gonna try keeping this up. NaNoWriMo is coming up, so if November comes and I stop posting frequently, you'll know why. If that happens, maybe ill post a bunch of quick chapters and condense them later so people don't feel left out without anyone to read.
> 
> Thank you everyone for the feedback! I really appreciate it. It makes me want to keep going, which is good!


	4. Going Deeper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toriel's taking too long, and Dean's not the type of guy who likes waiting around.

Dean spent several minutes sitting in a pile of leaves, waiting for Toriel to come back.

 But it was taking _forever._ What was taking her so long? The longer he waited in that pile of leaves, the more he felt like he needed to get out and start exploring this place on his own terms.

 A couple more of those frogs (something in his SOUL told him they were called Froggits or something) hoped on by, but Dean was pretty good at staying out of their way, but a couple stray compliments were enough to keep them from hurting him at all. He even met a little insect, but the moment he tried saying anything it fluttered away.

 It was around then that he decided it was time to move on. He saw the direction in which Toriel was headed; he knew where she was going, and he could definitely take care of himself.

 IT was then that the phone started to buzz. Dean frantically fished it out of his pocket and flipped it open.

 “Hello? This is Toriel.” The quiet voice came through the phone, “You have not left that room, have you?”

Dean glanced up, and he may have moved into the next room in his distracted wandering…

“Nope. Still here!” Dean chuckled nervously.

 “Good, there are some difficult puzzles ahead that I haven’t explained. It would be dangerous to try and solve them yourself.”

“O-okay…”

“Be good, alright?” She asked.

“Yes, mom.” Dean said with some sincerity, and then bit his lip suddenly.

 Crap, did that just happen? If it had been sarcastic, he could’ve recovered or something…

Was that what he thought of her?

 When he clued back in, he realized that Toriel had been saying something on the other end of the phone.

“A-anyway, I’ll come back for you soon. Be good!”

Dean closed the phone as his cheeks burned deep. Well. It was official. He could go back to the spike room and jump on top of them.

 He rolled his eyes. Whatever, it was time to move on. He marched into the next room. Expecting a tough puzzle of some sort, all he found was a bowl of candy.

_Score!_

There was a little sign in front of it. “Please take one.”

Dean did a quick scan of the room. Surely no one would notice if he took a few more…

He reached into the bowl and grabbed a handful of candy. Unfortunately, the bowl got knocked over as he tried to move away. Dean slowly stepped back and stared at the mess in front of him. That did not go as planned. Now he kind of felt bad for taking as much as he did.

 Still, he treaded onwards. Sure enough, the walk was riddled with many puzzles. But were they dangerous? Dean wasn’t entirely sure. There were cracks in the ground at points where he fell through the floor and landed in a soft pile, but it only took a little observation to get through. Another time he ran into yet another monster on his way, but it wasn’t really dangerous at all. It kind of sat there and jiggled for a little. Dean tried to poke it a little, or something, but even then it just jiggled and absently dropped pellets.

 Dean just walked on by. He ran down the ruins with a stick still in his hand and occasionally tapped on the bricks with the edge of it.

 At one point, he passed a sign on a wall, next to a floor of spikes, a switch, and a grey rock.

 “3 out of 4 rocks recommend being pushed.”

 Then his phone started to ring. Again, Dean grabbed for the device, cheeks reddening as he realized he wasn’t really following Toriel’s directions.

 “Hello? This is Toriel.”

“Oh, hi.” Dean responded.

“Hi Dean,” he could practically hear her smile. “For no reason in particular, which do you prefer? Cinnamon or Butterscotch?”

Dean’s eyebrow rose. Where was this coming from? Though the idea of either sounded like it would taste great with some kind of pastry.

 Man, he could go for a pie.

 “Uhh… butterscotch.”

“Oh. Okay. Thanks!”

 Then she hung up. Dean rolled his eyes as he walked towards the rock in the centre of the room.

 The phone rang again. Dean flipped it open once more.

“Hello? This is Toriel.”

“Yeah, what’s up?” Dean replied as he pressed his phone under his ear.

 Carefully he used the bottom of his foot to push the rock. It was surprisingly light, and it slid easily across the floor. It fell into the indent with a click, and the spikes sunk back into the floor.

 “You do not DISLIKE Cinnamon, do you? Like if you found it on your plate you wouldn’t turn your nose up at it.

 “No, Toriel.” Dean replied.

 He hoped she couldn’t tell how hard he was trying to avoid calling her Mom again.

“Okay, I understand. Thanks!”

 And then she hung up once more. Dean had a hidden suspicion that she might be checking in like that more often. Still, onwards he went. He entered another room that required lots of falling, but the red leaves he fell on were surprisingly soft. They reminded him of watching Sammy when they were younger, and the times they’d spend running into large piles of leaves. He figured out the path soon enough. Carefully tip-toeing over the cracked floor, he made his way into the next room, which had a few more rocks.

 “Seriously?” Dean grumbled.

 The same puzzle over and over was starting to get irritating. But it had to get done. The prize at the end was too tantalizing to ignore.

 Well, more likely the curiosity was going to kill him.

 One rock was pushed into position. A second rock was pushed into position.

 The third… was really heavy. Dean tried pushing it as he did with all the rest, but it wouldn’t budge. It didn’t look any different from the rest of the rocks… so what’s going on?

“Whoa there pardner!”

Dean stared at his feet. The rock talked to him, hadn’t it?

“You think you can just go pushin’ me around?”

“Alright, CAN I push you around?” Dean glared.

“Oh, now you’re ASKIN me to move. All right then.”

The rock slid slightly towards the switch.

 This was going to take a while, Dean thought.

 Sure enough, it was another few minutes before the rock finally ended up where Dean needed it. He started to walk towards the spikes, and had to stumble backwards as the spikes shot out of the ground.

 His head snapped back to the rock as he realized it had abandoned the switch.

“Dude, c’mon.” Dean rolled his eyes.

“Okay, okay. Jeez. Pushy.” The rock mumbled as it slid back into place. Dean, not wanting to be there if the rock decided to move again, he quickly rushed across the spikes in case the rock got twitchy again.

 In the next room, Dean encountered a strange looking monster that resembled a vegetable.

_Gross._ Dean just dodged the vegetables this “thing” threw at him and slipped on through into the next room.

 The first thing he noticed was that it was considerably smaller than the room before. Maybe it was meant to be a break between the puzzles, but so far they hadn’t seemed too difficult. Toriel was overreacting. Sure, it had taken a while for Dean to get used to the monsters attacks, but he couldn’t really blame them. In this world, he realized, _he_ was the monster. They were scared of him, but all he had to do was show them some kindness and respect and they wouldn’t bother him.

 Maybe Sam was right about more than he thought. Dean wondered briefly about as his brother as he stared at a piece of cheese on a table, and a mouse hole in the wall. When he went to move the cheese, he realized it had been stuck to the table. It must’ve been there a long time.

 Still, as he looked at the table, then back at the hole in the wall, it reminded him of his own task to move in through this underground world.

 His SOUL flashed yellow as he was filled with determination.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, shorter chapter this time around. NaNoWriMo is still coming, so hopefully I can update this a bunch. Thank you so much for all of the feedback! It's really great and I adore all of you.


	5. Light-Blue Jazz

 There was a ghost pretending to sleep on the floor in front of Dean. On top of a pile of those red leaves he’d seen everywhere, a ghost was quietly fake-snoring when Dean approached it. It wasn’t even trying to make realistic sleeping sounds, it just sounded like a long “z” sound that kept going forever.

 In all fairness, it was less irritating than the talking rock from beforehand.

 Still, Dean wanted to move forward. He felt as though he was getting closer to wherever he was going, even if there was a gnawing guilt at the back of his brain, taunting him for choosing to ignore Toriel’s advice. He bit at the inside of his lip. Fine, then he’d just have to push the ghost out of the way.

 “Hey, ‘scuse me.”

 The ghost floated off the ground. Its eyes were wavering, almost as though he was on the verge of tears. His whole face was… it reminded Dean of grey clouds and heavy rain.

 Well, he’d had a lot of practice talking to other monsters, maybe this ghost would be the same. Dean had dealt with many vengeful spirits and many lingering wills, but this “ghost” was very different than what he’d been used to. For one thing, it looked more like how a child would draw a ghost than what they actually looked like. Dean wouldn’t be surprised if this ghost was always a ghost.

 “S-sorry… I was… just trying to find some space.” It mumbled morosely.

 Dean’s SOUL flew in front of him and tears started to float out of the ghost’s eyes. The rushed towards Dean and his SOUL, and he quickly started to dodge out of the way. He was pretty good at the evasive maneuvers, but even then a stray tear struck his SOUL, and he could feel the burn flick across his body.

 It was at this moment that Dean heard a bit of music starting to bounce around the room. It was sort of a blues or jazz kind of compilation. It wasn’t necessarily his style, but Dean knew that most classic rock had started off with something like this.

 He’d be lying if he said he didn’t like the vibe. But where it was coming from? Then he noticed a boom box of some kind had been set up in the corner of the room.

  _Property of NAPSTABLOOK_ was written on masking tape and stuck to the side of it.

 “Is that your boom box making the music?” Dean asked patiently as he brushed dust off his knees.

 “Oh?..” the ghost murmured as his body twisted around for a moment, then he turned back with a slight nod.

 “It’s some pretty cool music.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, I’m more of a classic rock guy myself… but I like the vibe. Your name’s Napstablook, then?”

Another nod.

“I’m Dean.”

He expected another round of tears (The monsters all seemed to give him a moment to talk before attacking again) but instead fuzzy words appeared in front of Napstablook’s eyes.

_Not feelin up to it now. Sorry…_

That being said, after complimenting Napstablook’s taste, the ghost looked a little less like the physical embodiment of depression.

“I… I wrote the music myself…”

Dean’s eyes lit up. Okay, now he was a little more impressed. He always liked musicians. They were always a little more “free” in many ways. And far more creative.

 “That’s awesome! It sounds really good.”

The ghost’s head rose a little higher. Some more tears fell from his eyes, but these felt a little more instinctive than previously. Dean dodged them easily.

“You… dodge good… I mean, if you don’t mind me… saying. I’m sorry I’m-”

“It’s alright. I appreciate the compliment.”

 The ghost stared at Dean apprehensively, “C-can I show you something?”

Dean shrugged, “Sure. Go for it.”

“Let me try…”

 Napstablook started crying again, but the tears started to climb up his head. Dean watched as something started to form from his tears.

“I call it, ‘Dapper Blook’…”

Dean’s face lit up with a bright grin. He started giggling, and couldn’t stop himself. It wasn’t coming from insult, but it genuinely brought joy to Dean’s features.

 The ghost floated closer to Dean. His SOUL, satisfied, retreated back to its normal floating position behind Dean as Dean started to smile.

“I usually come to the ruins because nobody is around,” Napstablook explained, “but today, I met someone nice.”

 There was a pause. Dean had been acting friendly with the other monsters because he knew he didn’t have to fight them. Now he realized it might be a little different. This Ghost- Napstablook. He was a musician. A showman who wanted people to appreciate his art and his work.

 Did all these creatures have ambitions? Hobbies? Dean never really had time for that. Going from town to town, stopping disaster after disaster… There was one thing he cared about: His family. Everything else was just a distraction.

 Maybe these monsters had families they were looking out for. Or genuine drive or passion to do something that could make a difference.

 “Oh, sorry. I’ll get out of your way.”

In one moment, Napstablook faded away, and his boom box and the music with it faded away too.

 Dean was left with a quiet smile on his face. He still had places he needed to go, but Napstablook had shown him something he hadn’t expected from the fake-sleeping ghost.

Odd… he realized he hadn’t freaked out the moment he ran into one. Maybe this ghost was just a little too different from the rest to freak him out.

 Dean made his way across the leaves where Napstablook once lay and headed into the room down the corridor.

 There, he was eating a piece of his candy when he saw some cobwebs spread across the back wall. They really shouldn’t have seemed out-of-place, but then he realized that he hadn’t seen any other webs splayed across these old ruins anywhere else. He’d seen more cobwebs in the home of a living person.

 Did Toriel clean it? No, that was too big a job for one monster. Strange.

 Then he noticed there was a sign stuck in the ground in front of the webs, and a few spiders were sitting on top of it.

 SPIDER BAKE SALE! (All proceeds go to real spiders)

Yup. Dean had officially seen everything. Still, he saw there was a collection of donuts laid out, and a couple bottles of what was described as “spider cider”.

 He didn’t really trust the cider, but the donuts seemed appetizing enough. Using some of the gold that all the monsters dropped when he spared them, he picked up a donut and slid it into his inventory.

 Someone he trusted that it wouldn’t get squished.

 The spiders gave him tiny, gleeful hops as he left, but his adventure had to trek on.

 The deeper he moved into the Ruins, the monster types became more varied. He ran into one creature that looked like a giant eye with arms and legs, almost like a Disney character he’d seen in an ad or something, and it just asked Dean not to pick on it.

So he didn’t. He also ran into another little bug who seemed to be acting a little bit like a jerk, but once the rest of his friends had gone away, he seemed to calm down just a little bit.

 As he wandered into the next room, he noticed three frogs that were all just hanging out together. Unfortunately, Dean couldn’t really understand what they were saying. He got a feeling that somehow whatever they had to say probably didn’t affect him. He just let them hop around each other for a while as he walked towards the other room.

 Then, a buzz came from his pocket again. He pulled the phone out and responded quickly.

 “Hey, Toriel,” Dean yawned. Man, all this walking around was starting to get tired. How long ago had it been when he’d fallen into the Underground? He could barely remember. Had him and Sam gone to check out the mountain this morning?

 “Hello Dean. I just realized that I have a lot of cleaning up to do,” she explained, “so there’s a lot of stuff that’s been left lying around. If you see anything you like, be sure that you have the space for it. You don’t want to come across something later and not have any space in your pockets.”

 Dean ruffled his hand through the pockets of his pant. Actually, they were getting kind of full now that he was thinking about it. But he trusted he was keeping track of things.

 Anyway, there were more puzzles to be solved, and the next room kept the trend going.

  _There is only one switch._

 At first glance, there wasn’t really any switches to be seen, but then he noticed the holes in the floor. Six holes were laid out in a symmetrical pattern across from each other: three on one side, three on the other.

 Well, if the solution wasn’t easily present at first, then the best option was to push through and figure it out. He fell down the first hole, tumbling onto a soft pile of red leaves, and instead of finding a switch, he instead had an unfortunate run-in with a vegetable monster.

 It was probably the scariest monster he’d seen so far, next to that flower.

 It made him eat vegetables. Gross.

 Anyhow, he took the shoot upwards and returned above. He took off towards the next hole he saw…

 When he fell down this one, he was surprised to see Napstablook lying on the ground again.

“Napstablook?” Dean asked, raising an eyebrow. The ghost looked up at him with sad eyes.

 “I fell down,” he mumbled, “and I can’t get up again.”

Dean stared at the floating ectoplasm, waiting for the ghost to figure it out.

“Oh, I can fly, can’t I?”

Dean nodded.

“Well, I’ll see you later then.”

 And once again, the ghost faded away. Dean just shook his head as he pulled himself up the hole and tried another one. He tumbled down his third hole, and again there was no switch to be found. Instead, he found a red ribbon lying on the grown. It was torn and frayed around the edges, suggesting it had been there for a long time. He walked over and picked it up, feeling the fabric in his fingertips.

 “Did… this belong to someone?” Dean said quietly. His eyebrows furrowed as he and his SOUL bent over the ribbon.

 As if looking for answers, Dean glanced upwards at the floating heart, but it did nothing but float there, as usual. Delicately, he pulled the ribbon into his pocket and took a moment to look around the small, enclosed room. Patience. Each step needed to be thought out before it could be taken. It was like a hunt, he guessed. You couldn’t run into a place before finding all the information associated to the target.

 This would have to be the same. Not a hunt, perhaps, but something different entirely. With the ribbon in his pocket, Dean pulled himself up the hole and marched towards the next one.

 He found the switch and moved towards the exit. Another puzzle waited on the other side to twist his perspective, but with a little patience and thinking, he found his way through it without difficulty. By the time he left his final puzzle, however, Dean was dragging his feet down the stone corridor. His stick dangled to his side as he rubbed at his eyes. It was a struggle to stay awake, but he felt like he was close. There couldn’t be that much left. He continued down the same corridor and was about to turn towards a large tree he saw when he noticed a froggit sitting down at the edge of the hallway. It hopped towards him and stopped, not preparing to attack like the others.

 Instead, it sat there and croaked at him, in a way that Dean could somehow understand.

“You saw Toriel coming from that direction?” Dean repeated.

 His hand felt for the ribbon in his pocket as he trudged down towards the other room.

 It opened into a wide mural of a world in front of him. Tall spires and hidden buildings all spread out in front him, with many different buildings and a single opening in front of him. The room was empty. Except for a toy knife that had been left on the ground. He could tell it was fake just by looking at it. Too big, too plastic… nowhere near sharp enough. Hunting had taught him many things about a knife.

 Something called him to pick it up, though, in a similar fashion to the ribbon before. When his fingers brushed the plastic handle, Dean’s whole body shuddered.

 He felt it, suddenly. _A young girl: quiet and afraid. Her hair tied back with a red ribbon, and a toy knife hidden in the sash of her skirt. He saw the way she moved: carefully, calculated. She was patient. Dean saw how she acted quiet and waited in the face of these scary monsters._

_And then he saw how she struck them down. One monster after another would see her innocent, sweet act, and then she would strike them down with the brunt of her knife._

_The monsters burst like dust balloons, until a guardian… something deeper, older than what he’d predicted of the ruins… it knocked her down. A heavy hand took hold of a light-blue SOUL, and then it disappeared into Dean’s dreamscape._

_A plastic knife skittered across the room, a red ribbon fluttered to the ground. Dean was struck with a shiver, a coldness._

_Unlike Dean, who had Toriel to change his mind, this girl was running on survival instincts. She had been scared. She was doing what she needed to do to stay alive._

_That was to be patient. Wait for an opportunity to deal with her opponents, because she couldn’t fight them head-on, and she didn’t know they weren’t scary._

_They were monsters, after all._

_Dean placed the toy knife in his back pocket and pulled the ribbon back again. He noticed that his SOUL was light-blue for only a second before it faded back to red._

 Dean’s eyes struggled to stay open as he made his way back to the tree. It was old in appearance, with all its leaves fallen on the ground around it. It was the same red leaves that he’d seen fallen all over the place. Maybe the leaves fell the moment they were grown?

  He stumbled into the pile as he let out massive yawn. He felt his phone buzz in his pocket as he laid back against the tree.

That was when Toriel came around the corner.

 “Oh! Dean! I knew I shouldn’t have left you for so long. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, Toriel,” Dean rubbed at his eyes, “you were busy…”

She knelt down beside him. Her soft hand traced the curve of his face as his eyes came closed. It was like a stuffed animal’s fur.

“Dean, are you hurt?” Her tone was frantic.

 Dean shook his head, “Just tired...”

 A sigh of relief.

 “Well then, why don’t you take a nap in your room?”

 Dean was only kind of paying attention, but the idea of napping somewhere more comfortable than a pile of leaves was very appealing. He nodded his approval, although he wasn’t sure how he was going to convince himself to stand up again.

 But that didn’t seem to matter. Soft hands lifted him off the ground and pulled him close. He was surrounded in soft plush.

 “Have a good rest, Dean. I’ll have something for you when you wake up,” Toriel whispered as he carried him into a small, little house in the middle of the Ruins.

 In that level of sub-consciousness, Dean only had one response.

“‘Night, Mom…”

 Toriel’s heart grew both warm and concerned as he walked Dean towards what would be his new room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here! Another Chapter that's longer than the others because I didn't really know where to end it! Also, it's probably gonna be the last big update for a while because NaNoWriMo starts in five days. Ignore my screams. I'll try my best to update amidst NaNo and school, but I thank you for your understanding and feedback as always.
> 
> I am no where near done with this, so thank you all for following along!


	6. Heartache

He woke up curled in a quilt as sweat dripped down his forehead. No nightmares, no fear of ambush, just a simple stretch and strain of his muscles before he clued in to what had happened.

 He made it through the ruins, he fell down on the tree… then Toriel took him into this little house, and he fell asleep in her arms. Dean couldn’t remember the last time he felt this relaxed. Even the weirdly childish aesthetic of the bedroom didn’t really faze him.

 Then, he saw a pie waiting on the ground with a little steam wafting off the warm crust. It sat on a little china plate with a silver fork balanced next to it.

 It was gone in a few seconds. Not only was Dean starving, but the flavour was delicious. The sweetness of the butterscotch was put off by the cinnamon spice, and it all melted together in a harmony of flavours on his tongue. Dean had eaten his share of pie in his day, but it was almost like he was eating home-baked pie for the first time.

 He hoped she had more of this stuff, because he’d kill for another piece of that pie.

 His mind flashed to the memories of the light-blue girl with a toy knife, and an armored monster that ended her run.

 He closed his eyes and shook his head once. This wasn’t the time.to be thinking about that. He still needed to get out of here, after all. When his eyes opened once more, he noticed that his SOUL was floating in front of him once again, waiting expectantly.

He touched it briefly. Felt how warm it was. His arm prickled with a strange energy. Was this what Cas kept talking about, what Cas told him he felt?

  Regardless, his stomach growled again. The thought of more pie was still drawing him away. He stomped out of the room and took a turn to the left. He wasn’t really paying attention, because he took a few steps before he stopped in front of the wall. Glancing around, it looked very much like the inside of some quiet home. There were houseplants all over the place, with picture frames of simple art. It felt like many other homes Dean had investigated, minus a haunting. There was even a simple mirror held up against the wall-

 Dean froze, then he stepped towards the mirror. His eyes went wide, and his hands started to shake.

 He… he was a kid! He pressed his tiny hand to the glass, and the figure on the other side reached back. He noticed his lighter, blonder hair, and the freckles dusted across his nose, and his bright, innocent green eyes. When he moved his hand, the pudgy hand on the other side moved too

  He looked exactly the same as when he was eight, except for the soft clothing he was wearing. He didn’t really think about it that much, but the cottony shirt/sweater thing he had on was really soft.

Now that he thought about it, it all made sense. The fact that he was so freakin’ small compared to Toriel, the way he seemed to get emotional about things he never would’ve before.

 Heck, he hadn’t even thought about how miraculous it was that he hadn’t killed anyone yet. These things were _monsters_ , at least in a sense. But, he treated them all with kindness, and they all reciprocated with the same kindness.

 So he was a kid then. He felt it on some level, but that was how everyone was going to perceive him. He could live with that. Maybe he’d be able to get away from some things for a little bit. Either way, he still needed to get back and find Sam. Leaving him alone just wasn’t an option.

 But for now, he _really_ wanted pie.

 “Glad to see you up and about!”

Dean spun around to see Toriel towering over him.

 “Oh, Mornin’,” Dean yawned. The dregs of sleep still tugged at his body a little bit as Toriel smiled.

 Then he remembered something else: “Oh. I liked your pie…”

 Toriel gave a bright smile, before Dean’s stomach rumbled more. His hunger catching up with him. She brought out a cheeky grin as Dean’s cheeks blushed.

 “Do you want some more?”

 Dean’s head almost shook off based how much he was nodded. Enough to make Toriel laugh.

“Well then, let’s go get some. I wanted your first day here to be a welcome one, so let’s go and get some more.”

 Dean followed after her.

“I’ll hold off on the snail pie for now.”

 Then he needed to stop himself from gagging because he was pretty sure she wasn’t joking

 Dean was led down past a stairway that headed downwards and was brought into another room adorned with a small table and a dusty bookshelf. Dean stopped in front of a bookshelf, looking up at the colorful titles, and the books strewn in multiple different sizes. To be fair, it was really the only source of information he saw in this place. There were a whole bunch of books stacked up and organized next to each other, then there was one book sitting on a chair.

 “I’ve been hoping to find someone to read to,” Toriel sighed as she brought in another piece of pie for the expectant Dean.

 Toriel’s eyes looked over the books. Dean looked up to her as he took a mouthful of pie. There was a definite smile on her face, but the eyes staring at the shelf told a different story.

 She took a seat and pulled out the book, “I’ve also been working on a curriculum for your education.”

“Huh?” Dean blinked.

“I know this might be hard to believe, but I always wanted to be a teacher. Would you be okay if I read you a story?”

 Dean shrugged. Anything to distract him from the “surprise you’ve aged down like twenty-something years”.

  She cracked open the long book and held it on her lap.

 “Once upon a time, there were humans, and there were monsters.”

The moment she started talking, any motion in Dean’s body went completely still. Her voice was enrapturing. It was as if Dean had front-row seats to the best performance he’d ever heard.

 “Now, the humans and monsters used to live together, but then a terrible war broke out between both sides. It was terribly one-sided. The monsters were pushed back and pushed back. The humans then erected a powerful barrier, trapping all of the monsters in the Underground forever.”

 Dean’s spine shivered.

 “They humans celebrated their victory, then slowly began forgetting about the monsters’ existence, but the monsters had more important things to do. Their leader set up a large kingdom in this underground world, and he called it Home.”

“Home?” Dean squinted.

Toriel rolled her eyes, “Their ruler wasn’t very good with names.”

“Is… Is that Home still around?”

“Well, we’re standing in it right now.”

“Really?”

Dean glanced around, “This tiny house was Home?”

“No,” Toriel giggled, “The Ruins were Home once. There’s many other buildings that spread outwards into these caves.”

“So, where’s everyone now.”

She paused, “They left. Many monsters wanted to head out deeper into the Underground to see what was there for them, but the truth is there still isn’t much here. We monsters have been hopeful for a long time that someone would come and break the barrier and set us free, but that hope is tested every single day.”

  Dean thought about it for a moment, but then he got to his feet.

“There’s got to be a way out.”

“Pardon?”

“Well,” Dean sighed, “There needs to be another way. How else am I gonna get out of here?”

 The book tumbled to the ground, startling Dean. He looked up at Toriel. Her face was firm, her eyes clouded and confusing. What was she thinking?

 “Toriel?”

“I’m sorry, Dean. But I can’t let you leave. It’s dangerous out there.”

“What?” Dean exclaimed, “But I have to get back! There’s people waiting for me!”

 Toriel rushed past Dean, towards the stairwell in the next room. Dean found himself running after her, down the steps, into another purple hallway made of the same stones as the rest of the Ruins. Toriel had paused, maybe for breath, maybe out of contemplation as Dean stumbled after her. He nearly wiped out on the final step in his rush to get to her.

“Toriel!”

 “The rest of the Underground is not like these Ruins, Dean,” Toriel stated.

 Her tone hit him like a sledgehammer. What happened to all that softness? Where did it go?

“What do you mean –“

 “There’s many monsters out there who want to hunt you down… The monster king…”

“What are you saying?”

“Asgore… he… they… there are many that want to kill you.”

Dean stopped. His hand shook. He felt the weight of the stick in his back pocket, of the girl’s toy knife he found in the other.

_In this world, it is kill or BE killed._

No, that wasn’t true. These monsters were people, basically. Each and every one of them he’d been able to talk to.

 There was no way in hell he would stop trying to get out of here. His brother, and Cas; they were both waiting for him.

 Dean’s determination was buzzing around him so much that his SOUL was practically blinking yellow.

 “This leads to the only exit of the Ruins, and I’m going to destroy it.” Toriel stated. Her words tasted bitter.

 Dean followed after her, “No. I- I can’t stay here,” he stammered, “I have people counting on me…”

“It’s for your own good, Dean!” She snapped.

 Dean took a step backwards. His eyes were wide as he watched sparks explode from her hand.

 Toriel clutched her wrist, and looked back at Dean with a mix of shame, and fear.

 “I’ll give you one more chance Dean. Go back. I’ll meet you upstairs.”

She rounded the corner. Dean began to wonder. She was so serious about this. So determined to stop him.

 Would he be able to take her out to get back home? After all that she showed he cared?

 His brain flashed back to his upset mother on the phone with her husband. That one moment when Dean was so little, and he didn’t quite understand.

  _“It’s okay, mommy. I’m here.”_

Dean couldn’t stop the tear that plinked off the floor.

 No, killing her was not an option.

 But Dean had Determination. If he showed her that he wasn’t going to give up, then that’s what was going to happen.

 He ran after her. The hallway opened up into a large foyer. A massive, decorated door stood sentry to the massive ruins.

 Toriel’s hands burned with magic fire. It sizzled aggressively in her hands as she stared up at the giant door.

 “Toriel!” Dean shouted.

 She turned around.

Dean stared her down.

“One last chance, Dean. Or I will be forced to show you the dangers that await you.”

 Dean planted his feet. His SOUL spun forward in front of him like a grand shield. His stance showed that he refused to move. A determined stare met Toriel as the room around them grew warmer.

 She shut her eyes for a moment before her eyes snapped open once more.

“So be it.”

 The floor around them erupted into flames. Torches exploded with fire and it blazed from her hands.

 Dean’s SOUL stood ready. Then Toriel started throwing fire. The fire balls flew towards Dean’s SOUL, but he refused to move.

 Dean felt the flames lick at his body. He gritted his teeth with the sting of the flames. She followed with fire raining from the sky. The embers fell down and stung Dean. The heat brought tears to his eyes. But still, he stood his ground.

 He wanted to say something. Anything, but his actions were speaking louder than his words.

 “Run back, Dean!” she shouted. More fire shot from her hands.

 Dean still didn’t move even as the next hit knocked him to his knees.

“Turn around, go back upstairs, and forget about this!”

 More fire rained downwards. Oddly, none of the flames hit Dean or his SOUL this time. The embers fell to his sides as they danced around him.

 “Why won’t you _listen!”_  Her shouts were shrill as tears dripped from her eyes. The flames started to die down a little bit.

 Eventually. The fires started to die down. Dean looked upward. His body shook from pain. Everything hurt a little bit as the last of the fires started to die away.”

“Heh,” she laughed half-heartedly, “You’re serious about leaving, aren’t you?”

Dean still said nothing. He watched the fires burn away into flickers.

“I suppose… the ruins are cramped. You would get bored pretty quickly. They get pretty small once you stay here for a while.”

 Her hands wiped at her eyes, “I can’t even save one child…”

 Dean felt a pang in his heart.

“Toriel...”

She looked up at him. Tear stains were visible on her soft fur, but she tried to smile anyway.

 “No Dean, you’re right. You need to find your way home… can I ask you something?”

He nodded.

“Why?”

 Dean’s SOUL flickered gold once more, and Dean found newfound strength in his determination.

 “I have a little brother waiting for me on the other side. I need to find a way back to him.”

More tears came from Toriel’s eyes, even as she smiled.

“Ah.”

 There was a brief pause.

 “Dean, when you leave, please don’t come back.”

“Huh?”

“I’m sorry… it… I just couldn’t…”

“It’s okay.”

 “Maybe you can be different. Maybe you can prove me wrong.” Her face softened as she walked forward and wrapped her arms around him in a warm hug.

 “Be good, Dean.”

Dean reciprocated as he threw his tiny arms around her neck and burrowed his face in her white fur. He tried his best to muffle his cries as he realized he probably wouldn’t see Toriel again.

 He never expected that a monster could be the mother he lost, even if it was only for a little while.

 When the hug was finished, Toriel rushed out of the room and out of the hallway, leaving Dean with the heavy door in front of him.

 He was surprised by how easy it was to push open as he stepped back into a dark room. It was almost like when he first got here. It was another dark room, with only a small patch of dirt at the centre.

 Down to the asshole flower that sat waiting.

 “Congratulations. You spared a few lives.” The flower grinned menacingly as Dean stomped towards it.

 “Yeah, and I’ll keep sparing them!”

“Oh will you?” The flower’s grin grew wider, “Or will you be driven to frustration? Will you not know how to spare someone and be driven to kill them because you don’t know of another way? You must think you’re _soooo_ smart, not killing anyone.”

 Its face emerged from the flowers. The same, fanged evil face stared him down in the eyes.

 “Just remember that _I_ am the prince that will inherit the world.”

 He cackled madly. Flowey’s voice echoed through the chamber like toxic smoke.

 Then the flower dove into the ground and disappeared, leaving Dean alone with his thoughts as he stepped foot through thick doors and out into a dark forest. The doors slammed shut behind him.

 Suddenly, Dean was over come by loneliness. He was alone again, in a dark forest. He spun around to face the doors, but just by placing his hand on the door, he could tell it was not going to let him back in.

 In a last ditch effort, Dean pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, hit the speed dial for Toriel and put the phone to his ear.

 But no one answered.

 Tired, distraught, and over come with emotion, the now-young Dean didn’t no what else to do. His eyes grew blurry…

 Then he collapsed with his back against the door. He curled up against his knees, and cried like a child who’d lost his mother. Tears fell like he hadn’t experienced in a long time. His body shuddered with emotion.

 His wails echoed off through the lonely trees, off the quiet snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha! Got a chapter updated despite NaNo and school and my computer collapsing! Just to show you how much I love you guys. Thank you so much for your feedback, as always, and I will continue conducting this feels train even if the stops are hit by numerous delays.
> 
> Thanks guys!


	7. Spooky Snowy Skeletons

Dean Winchester curled up in front of that door for many minutes as his heart tore itself apart trying to figure out what needed to happen next. Wooden giants stood staring down at him in that tall forest with leaf-less trees. Snow stayed on the ground and a chill nipped at his bare skin. Already he missed the warmth of the ruins, and the warm arms of the monster who protected them. It wasn’t going to stop there, however. Dean’s mind was already focusing on other priorities.

  He needed to find Sam.

 So, once he had no other tears to spill, he found the toy knife on the ground, picked up his stick, checked his SOUL to see how it was doing, and he marched onwards towards the woods ahead.  

 Already he could hear the whisper of the trees around him, and the sticks cracking as he stepped forward.

 He felt as though he was being watched. Like dark holes were trying to suck him into another dimension.

 Then, a loud snap cracked through the empty forest of dead trees.

 Dean’s spine shivered like the trees themselves. He felt as though his own spine had been snapped by the heavy crack. His whole heart shivered on edge as his SOUL spiralled around his head, and throughout his body.

 Dean took a deep breath. He knew these feelings. He knew what it felt like to have monsters breathing down his neck, and to have other monsters staring at him directly in his eyes.

 But then a moment later he felt an intense presence hanging behind him. Dean’s body froze, his skin stopped, and his bones solidified.

 “Hey buddy, is that how you greet someone new?”

 His voice was deep, with a lazy lull to it. It sounded like it should belong to a tugboat or something.

 “Usually that’s done with a handshake,” the voice smirked, “So c’mon, shake my hand.”

 Dean took a deep breath, he felt the chilling cold that came from the being behind him, so he decided to meet his maker. He stopped, he turned around, and he reached out his hand without paying attention.

 It was only when he heard a loud farting noise did he decide to open his eyes.

 There was a pair of glowing dots staring back at him and a glued-on grin.

 Dean was staring eye-to-eye with a pot-bellied skeleton in a blue hoodie, and a whoopee cushion was present in his hand.

 He had to admit there was a little bit of a giggle that came from him.

 “Ah, you fell for the old whoopee-cushion-in-the-hand trick,” the skeleton grinned, or if there was some other expression he could have.

 “Aren’t you supposed to put it under a cushion or something?” Dean asked awkwardly.

 He decided to go with the friendly method. A fellow prankster could share some sort of camaraderie with those who participated in the art of the practical joke.

 The skeleton in question gave a large shrug as Dean stared wide-eyed at the skeleton’s own “eyes”. Now, he was used to undead things, but… skeletons just made no sense! How do skeletons stand up on their feet if there’s no muscle to keep them standing?

 “Hey Kid,” he said suddenly. Also how did this skeleton speak through its teeth. IT had no lips to move, almost like a speaker from a sound system.

 Dean coughed, then looked up at the figure standing directly in front of him.

 “Yeah?” Dean mumbled.

The skeleton scratched the back of his head, “I was wondering if you could do me a favour.”

Dean nodded.

 “You see, my brother has never seen a human before, and it’s his big goal to capture one.”

 Dean froze. Capture a human? Was he serious?

 “So, I was wondering if you could play along for a little. He really likes puzzles, so it would be great if you could do that for. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure that nothing else could happen.”

 Dean only gave a nod as the pair started walking along, “Okay, I guess that’s fine-“

 When he turned around, the skeleton had disappeared and Dean already saw some kind of stand sitting in the distance, where the skeleton was sitting on top of some desk, looking almost asleep.

 Though that didn’t last for long when Dean stepped towards the slight opening, when he noticed a strange, curved lamp sitting alone in front of some hut.

 “Oh, he’s coming.” The skeleton spoke up. Bony hands like ridged stone grabbed Dean’s shoulders, and moved him behind the lamp. It was only in this moment that he realized that the lamp was as tall as he was.

 And suspiciously shaped to match his contour almost exactly.

 “Now stand right there, okay?”

“SANS!” A high pitched voice shrilled through the air. Dean swore he could hear sticks snap just from the tone. Dean’s body went rigid as the skeleton, who had just been declared Sans; he turned to look down the path.

 “’Sup, Papyrus,” Sans’ grin remained stuck.

“SANS! DIDN’T I ASK YOU TO RECALIBRATE YOUR PUZZLES?” a taller skeleton stomped onto the scene. A small cape draped from his shoulders, and a strange costume adorned his skinny bone structure.

 “I did, didn’t I?”

“WELL, THEY’RE TOO EASY!” Papyrus shouted. “HOW IS THE GREAT PAPYRUS SUPPOSED TO IMPRESS UNDYNE WITH PUZZLES LIKE THIS?”

“That’s certainly a ‘puzzle’.”

“SANS! I’VE HAD IT WITH YOUR STUPID PUNS!”

 Dean had to cover his mouth to block out his laughter.

 “So, have you taken a look at that cool lamp sitting there?” Sans suddenly suggested as Dean went still as stone.

The tall skeleton rolled his eyes, “I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS, SANS! A HUMAN COULD COME THROUGH HERE AT ANY MOMENT!”

“Maybe looking at that lamp could ‘shine a light’ on your situation?” Sans’ sarcastic tone was ruthless.

 “UGH!” Papyrus groaned, “NEVERMIND! JUST PLEASE RECALIBRATE YOUR TRAPS!”

 With that, the angry skeleton with the red cape and bright boots trudged off in the opposite direction with a clear sense of frustration buzzing off his bones.

 “Okay,” Sans sighed, “I think it’s safe…”

 He poked his head back around the other side of the large lamp, where he found a miniature Dean clutching his stomach. He doubled over with laughter when he looked up to see Sans staring back at him

 “S-sorry…” Dean snorted, “It… It’s just.... Your jokes are so funny…”

 Sans’ eyes flickered in light of Dean’s determination. His eyes moved towards the red heart that bobbed around his head like the tip of a ribbon, then he chuckled a little himself.

 “I appreciate that. Anyway, I was hoping you could do me one more favor.”

 The skeleton’s strangeness was overwhelmed by his plucky sense of humor, though his existence brought many questions to Dean’s mind.

 “Sure, what do you need?” Dean asked again.

 Sans smiled, or, at least Dean thought he did. It was hard to tell with that perpetual grin.

 “My brother’s worked really hard on all these puzzles to catch a human,” Sans chuckled, “but… as you can see by that ‘fence’ behind you, they could use a little work…”

 Dean blinked for a moment, then he nodded in agreement. So far, the pair hardly seemed dangerous. In fact, the skeleton’s idea of a “fence” was so huge and spread apart that Dean had barely noticed whilst walking through.

 It felt like something out of a Tom and Jerry cartoon, or something similar. Besides, Tom and Jerry occasionally worked out their differences, right? This could be just like that.

 And dear god how much had Dean changed with his age? Where did these cartoons come from? Suddenly thoughts of catching glimpses of them over his little brother’s shoulder brought him spiralling into a tornado of nostalgia.

When he looked up, Sans had vanished. There weren’t even footprints in the snow beneath his feet.

 Dean took a deep breath, and looked down the path ahead.

 Already, he could hear whispers in the woods, of monsters chuckling to each other, or groaning.

 He could’ve sworn he heard someone yell something along the lines of “go away Jerry!”, but he couldn’t be sure.

 He could play nice with a couple of skeletons.

 Maybe Toriel was wrong. Maybe these monsters weren’t as bad. They seemed nice enough.

 But he’d keep that toy knife close just in case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short one today, but I figured I'd let people know I was still writing furiously! November's come and gone, and with it my NaNo achieved Victory! So hopefully I can write a little more over the break.
> 
> Thanks again for all the feedback! There's no way I'm done with this one!


	8. Puzzling Encounters

  Dean marched down the path as his mind prepared for whatever puzzle might come in his direction in the upcoming path. He scratched at the back of his head as his pockets started to weigh him down. The trees lost the creepiness to their branches. Instead, they appeared only as dark, empty vessels like the snowy world around them, waiting for the next season to come.

 If the next season ever came.

 The snow stayed cold, and the air frigid, but when Dean looked up he could only see a dark expanse spread across the sky. Perhaps the world had descended to night in the time he’d spent in the Underground, but more likely it was merely the ceiling of this deep cavern. When was the last time snow had fallen here anyhow? Was it always this dark, for that matter? Nevertheless, Dean sound found himself at the centre of a crossroads. One road pressed forward, down whatever path he figured he was expected to take, while the other led down to a river. Mild curiosity pulled Dean off the beaten path, as he could make out what looked like a fishing rod stuck in the ground in the distance. He approached cautiously, grabbing the end of the rod and pulling it upwards without meeting any resistance.

 On the end, Dean saw a picture of some fish-eyed monster. Its scaly skin made Dean shiver as he flipped the photo around.

  _Call me!_

 A number was listed in a hasty scrawl.

The underground was weird.

 Dean dropped the line once more, and made his way back to the crossroads, where this time he finally decided to pay attention to what was staying there. A large box, about his size, sat next to an orderly sign.

  _You can store your stuff in this box. Don’t worry about forgetting anything, because if you see this box later, you can get your stuff out of that one. That way you’ll always know where you can find it!_

_Signed, A box lover._

 Dean snickered. Whether or not the end was intended, the pun still had a bite of humor. According to the box, it could be in multiple spaces at once, and hold his things forever.

 Sounded like something out of some fantasy or something. Dean grinned like the child he appeared to be. This world was strange and ridiculous, but he was loving it more and more every second.

  So, while following the sign’s advice, he opened the chest and got ready to dump a bunch of stuff inside, except something caught his eye before he could begin.

  It looked hard. Dark, brownish material stood out from the shadowy container as Dean reached in and pulled out some kind of glove. It was weighted, almost too heavy for his small size, but when he tried to put it on, it fit his hand perfectly.

  The strange feeling like sticky smoke tingled his skin, much like the ribbon and the toy knife from before. Its nostalgic touch made his SOUL flicker orange for only a moment. It was animalistic. Like pack animals with a familiar scent, Dean felt connected to y whoever owned that glove.

 But it was gone as soon as it came. Dean shook away the tingly feelings and kept walking along the path. It wasn’t far to travel before he could see Sans in the distance smiling up at his tall, bony brother. With a final breath, Dean took a step towards the pair and stood in wait.

 Sans’ eye twinkled, mimicking a wink with the light in his socket before he turned back to Papyrus.

“Hey Papyrus,” he murmured, “What’s that over there?”

 Papyrus rolled his eyes at first. The irritation with his brother’s shenanigans rivaled Sam’s on the sass scale before his head turned around.

 Dean felt eyes stare right through him.

“OH MY GOD!” he shouted, “IS… IS THAT…”

“Nope, that’s just a rock,” Sans interrupted.

 Dean raised an eyebrow, but then he looked backwards. Sure enough, a rock was minding its own business to the side of the road.

 “OH… DARN.”

 Dean blinked. What was even going on?

“hey,” Sans murmured, “what’s that in front of the rock?”

Papyrus followed Sans’ gaze until at last his eyes met Dean’s.

 Dean gave an awkward wave.

Papyrus stared at him, then back at Sans, then back at Dean…

For every movement that one skeleton made, the other made the opposite. It got to the point where both skeletons were spinning at a rapid pace over and over.

 Was he unconscious? Every moment Dean spent down here he expected it was a coma dream. Part of him was set to smack himself in the back of his head just to see if it could wake him up again. Then again, Dean had expected this whole thing to go sour like a few hours ago, and the clock until the shit was going to go down was spinning past its expiration.

  “SANS! OH MY GOD! A REAL HUMAN!” Papyrus shouted.

 “looks like it.” Sans added.

“OH! ALL MY DREAMS CAN COME TRUE! AT LAST, THE GRRREAT PAPYRUS WILL BECOME A MEMBER OF THE ROYAL GUARD! I’LL HAVE FAME! I’LL HAVE… RECOGNITION! I’LL… I’LL BE…”

“you’ll be…” Sans drawled.

“POPULAR!!!”

 “Uhm… okay?” Dean questioned.

“HUMAN! PREPARE YOURSELF!” Papyrus announced. His arm lifted upwards, and he pointed towards Dean, “I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS WILL CAPTURE A HUMAN! BUT FIRST, YOU WILL DANGEROUS, TERRIBLE PUZZLES!”

 “Anything else?”

“YOU WILL NOT GET PASSED THIS AREA! YOU WILL BE CAPTURED. THEN YOU’LL BE SENT OUT TO THE CAPITAL. AND THEN… I DON’T KNOW WHAT THEN…”

Dean suppressed laughter in his chest.  Papyrus prattled on about his genius plans, his desires to capture Dean (which put him a little on edge) before stomping off down the snowy path.

 “Your brother…” Dean chuckled to Sans.

Sans grinned, “No worries. I’ll keep an eye-socket out for ya.”

Dean blinked once more, and suddenly Sans had disappeared from sight again. He was left standing in the snow brink, thinking about the world that slowly spiralled around him. He marched onwards, passing a cardboard box shaped like a guard station and pressed down the path. From far away, he could sense that Papyrus had been the one to throw it all together.

 He seemed the type.

 Some monsters shuffled around in the snowy yard. Little snowy men with massive icicles sitting on their heads gave apprehensive looks until a word of greeting sent them on their way.

 But as he moved forward, another guard stand – this one more official-looking than the first was waiting on one side of the road. Dean kicked at the white powder as he pummeled the inside of his hand with the Tough Glove. It didn’t really suit him if he was being honest. Dean was better with things that had triggers, or handles. He kind of missed the feeling of the toy knife already, but its weight was off.

 It reminded him that things here didn’t have to be killed.

 As he passed by the second guard hut. A sharp glare stopped him in his track. Dean froze in his tracks, and his SOUL came still as it floated in front of him.

“Did something move?” he heard a voice, rough like sandpaper. Dean stood completely still as a dog-like creature’s head poked out from behind the hut.

 He looked at the strange dog with the bent ear and wet nose. His eyes were squinty adding a layer of suspicion.

 Or maybe it was because the dog couldn’t see?

“I can only see things that are moving, so did something move?” The dog snarled. A smoking dog treat poked out of his mouth like a cigarette.

 It was like a kid’s gangster parody.

  Suddenly, the dog flipped over the desk and ran right in front of Dean. Following that advice, Dean stilled his SOUL and his body, trying to become the rock for which he was almost mistaken.

  The dog ( _Doggo,_ as his SOUL told him) slid out his dagger with lightning reflexes. The whole blade was shimmering a light blue color.

  _Patience. Be Still._

Dean’s SOUL was solid. It remained immobile as Doggo brushed his blade straight through its centre, even if he couldn’t see it. Dean braced himself for pain, but instead all he found was a confused Doggo with a vibrating nose.

 He wondered for a moment… Would petting the dog make him less likely to hurt Dean?

 Sam always loved dogs. He gave attention to every dog they saw, even if it was a sore spot for Dean. Dean didn’t hate the animals; he figured they would mess up his car.

 And nothing was more important than Baby.

 Still, maybe this dog would act the same? Even if it was a bipedal, smoking, knife-slinging talking dog?

 Dean reached out quickly and pat him on the head.

 Doggo’s whole composure changed.

 His tongue started wagging and his head started spiralling in all directions. The dog bounced all over the place.

 “PET! Someone’s pet me! Pet, pat, pit, pot, pat, pit, pat…”

 He bounded all over the place. He mimicked more a bouncing bean than a dog until at last Doggo found himself back in position behind his station.

 “Man, maybe I should hold off on the dog treats for a while…”

 With that final statement, Doggo ducked back under his guard hut, leaving Dean to keep walking down the path.

 Papyrus and Sans were waiting for him a little further away. A wide field of ice separated them on both sides. The skeleton brothers were standing with wide-eyes and rapid chatter as Dean approached.

“-THIS PUZZLE ALONE IS WORTHY OF THE GREAT PAPYRUS NAME!!”

There was no response.

 “SANS…?”

 Still nothing.

 “SANS!”

 “what’s up.”

“SANS YOU LAZYBONES! NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR A NAP!”

“oh. sorry. I guess I was so ‘puzzled’ I fell asleep.”

“OH MY GOD SANS, I- OH, THE HUMAN!”

 Dean was still standing on the other side of the snowy patch.

“I GUESS NOW THAT YOU’RE HERE, I CAN EXPLAIN THE PUZZLE!”

“Whatever you say,” Dean shrugged, “I’ll just do whatever puzzle you have for me if it means getting through.”

 “IS IT TRUE! FINALY A HUMAN THAT APPRECIATES A GOOD PUZZLE!”

Dean chuckled. Sure, let’s go with that.

“NOW, WHAT STANDS IN FRONT OF YOU IS THE INVISIBLE MAZE! IF YOU STEP FORWARD WITHOUT WATCHING YOUR STEP, YOU WILL BE ZAPPED WITH ELECTRICITY!”

 Dean gulped at air, but when he glanced over at the other skeleton, Sans gave him a wink. Did he trust the skeleton? Maybe. Then again, so far the teleporting bag of bones had done nothing to hurt him.

 It was a leap of faith, but Dean had done worse to achieve his goals. He stepped forward onto the glassy patch, and no harm came to him.

 Papyrus’ face went blank. “WHAT? IS IT NOT-“

 Except when Papyrus stepped forward, electricity burst from his bones. It was straight out of a cartoon the way his bones were fried, until suddenly Papyrus was pushed back onto the ground, with his eyes bumbling around in his skull.

 Dean winced a little.

 “SANS! WHAT HAPPENED!?”

 “well, did ya give the orb to the human?”

 “I…OH, RIGHT.”

 Papyrus started walking down through the icy patch. Dean watched his feet. This time, the tall skeleton was dodging the electric walls with ease.

 “HERE, HUMAN! THIS WAY YOU CAN PERFORM THE PUZZLE PROPERLY.”

 He knelt over. His pliable spine pulled out a small glass bauble and dropped it in Dean’s hand.

 “THERE. NOW YOU MUST TRY THE PUZZLE.”

 He followed an identical path all the way back, but Dean realized that wasn’t all there was to it. A trail of blue spots followed behind Papyrus. His heavy boots pressed footprints into the ground, making it easy for Dean to follow through.

 He was still careful, however. Every step he took matched Papyrus’ exactly. He was a delayed shadow to the tall skeleton until he came out at the end facing the pair precisely.

 “WOWIE! THAT WAS GREAT!” Papyrus cheered, “YOU’RE QUITE GOOD AT PUZZLES! WELL, NOT AS GOOD AS ME, BUT STILL VERY GOOD!”

 He snatched the bauble back and marched off in the other direction, leaving Sans sitting next to Dean once again.

 Dean suspected a pattern.

 “my brother spent hours planning this puzzle,” Sans chuckled, “I saw him practicing it with some of his action figures in his room.

 Dean snorted. Sounded like _his_ tall dork-of-a-brother.

“isn’t my brother the coolest?” Sans chuckled.

 Dean nodded. The more he thought about it, there was something admirable about the time Sam put into his planning.

 Either way, there was time to be spent pushing through puzzle after puzzle. If Dean wanted to see his brother ever again, then he needed to keep moving forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, look! I'm still trying to push out chapters, so thanks for being patient, everyone!
> 
> Hopefully things will start picking up soon. Thanks again everyone for the feedback. I'll probably go back and edit everything at some point. Just to get this story up to a quality I appreciate, but until then Thank You!!


	9. Dogs and Puzzles on the Snowy Road

Dean stared blankly at the plate of frozen spaghetti.

Yup. There it sat, waiting for someone to fall prey to its distracting trap of wasting time. Unfortunately, it was stuck to its table.

 Another little mouse hole was poked through the stony wall behind the little display, and the idea that one day it could cook the spaghetti for itself filled Dean with determination.

 Then he moved on. He pressed into a quiet snowfield. Some sculptures and other things were scattered across a snowy field. A flag stood up out of a little hole, and a snowdecahedron sat in the wintry path as an object to be admired.

  Dean tumbled around in the snow for a while. His feet tripped on the sunken snow as he plummeted face-first in white powder. He got off and brushed it off quickly. His eyes squinted as he shivered slightly in the cold air, but when he looked down, he found a red dot was pointing out a specific spot.

 When Dean took a step back, he recognized the layout. Following the red dot, it led him to a small area in the centre of a few trees, and just before he was going press a button hidden under piles of snow, a dog with a sword and some armour jumped out from behind him.

 At first, Dean froze at the sight of the small dog. A “lesser” dog, if you would, but Dean soon learned the dog preferred to leap towards him instead of actually swinging the heavy blade at him. Dean dodged the first leap and immediately went for his initial dog strategy.

 He pat the dog on the head.

 At first, Dean stared and wondered what was coming next. The dog seemed placated, but something else happened too. His head popped up a little.  The dog’s neck stretched like elastic.

 Curious, Dean pet the dog again, and its neck stretched longer. And longer. And longer.

 Soon, Dean was still staring at the same plucky dog, only its neck was staring at him upside down.

 It was then that Dean waved him goodbye, and the dog leapt away over yonder. In a blink, the white canine had disappeared into the snowy plains.

 With that dog out of the way, pressing the button was pretty easy, as it let him pass into the next area.

 The whole snow plain seemed to be surrounded in dogs. As he passed by the fake golf course, he ran into two other dogs that gave him a good sniffing. Dean made like a dog himself and rolled into the dirt, trying to mask his scent. Even as the snow bit at his bare skin, he felt it was worth it when he taught two dogs that they could pet each other.

“(A whole new world has opened to us!)” the one dog whispered as Dean ducked underneath its massive axe.

 This was the strangest monster “hunting” Dean had ever been a part of, but none of the monsters he’d faced before had been without guilt. Dean hunted monsters that killed humans and abused them. So far, these monsters… they seemed kind. Dean was aware that this all might change the moment they realized that he was a human, but for now; they seemed blissfully ignorant.

 Then Dean marched onward and found himself facing Papyrus and Sans once more.

 “NOW THEN…” Papyrus cleared his lack-of-a-throat, “CAN YOU DEFEAT… SANS!” Papyrus’ attention turned to his shorter brother.

 “yeah?”

“HOW IS THAT SUPPOSED TO STOP THE HUMAN!”

 Dean looked down at the field in front of him. There were no spikes or switches… there was only a small piece of paper.

“well, I guess I could’ve left him a crossword.” Sans chuckled.

 Papyrus rolled his eyes, “CLEARLY YOU ARE INCORRECT. EVERYONE KNOWS THAT CROSSWORDS ARE _WAY_ EASIER THAN JUNIOR JUMBLE.”

 Dean picked up the paper curiously. His hands treated it like tissue paper as it was still damp from the snow. Sure enough, the title _JUNIOR JUMBLE_ was printed in bold at the top. It was a word search.

 Dean found most of the words easy enough.

 Until he found one last big stream of gibberish, and compared it to the actual word in the search.

 His eyebrows furrowed, and his lips formed a frown.

 “HUMAN! DECIDE THIS FOR US!”

 That snapped Dean from his aggravated stupor. He glared at Sans, who only gave a little shrug in response.

 Stupid skeletons and their impossible word searches.

 “Sorry, what?” Dean mumbled. He rubbed at his eyes. Sometimes it helped to remind himself that he wasn’t dreaming, and that he was actually talking to two beings without muscles or skin that still managed to stand up and be guards.

“WHICH IS TOUGHER? WORD SEARCHES OR THE INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT JUNIOR JUMBLE?”

 Sans looked at him expectantly, like a parent staring down their siblings so they say the right things.

 “Uh… Junior Jumble.”

“THANK YOU!” Papyrus cheered, “NOW, OFF TO THE NEXT PUZZLE TO STOP THE HUMAN!”

 Papyrus charged off in the opposite direction, and again Sans stayed behind.

“hey. thanks for saying junior jumble. for some reason he can never solve them.”

 Sans shrugged, “eh. he’s too busy making spaghetti usually.”

 Dean gave a little shrug, and soon he too was walking off after Papyrus. Sans’ presence wavered at the edge of Dean’s consciousness to the point where he didn’t know if he was there or not most of the time. This was just highlighted by when Dean passed by him on the way to fixing a poor monster who’d been plagued with decorations, and then ran into Sans only a moment later.

 His presence became landscape to Dean. When he heard Sans’ voice, he assumed he hadn’t gone anywhere Sans was everywhere and nowhere at once.

 It just buzzed in Dean’s head like television static. This was too complex for someone of his stature.

 The next time he ran into the skeleton brothers, Papyrus was giving his typical wide-mouth grin as a hand balanced on the switch of a heavy machine.

 “WELL, HUMAN! YOU HAVE DONE WELL THUS FAR, BUT THIS PUZZLE IS SURE TO STUMP YOU! BUT FIRST, ALLOW ME TO EXPLAIN!”

 Papyrus hurtled into a long-winded conversation about coloured panels and their options. Dean’s head spun as he tried to process everything.

 He was so excited that his words blurred together. He talked so fast!

 “ARE YOU READY, HUMAN?”

 He flipped the switch, the tiles in front of Dean cascaded with color until they all came together and stopped.

 A path had outlined itself perfectly for Dean, going straight down the centre.

Papyrus stared. His bony head slumped down onto its neck before he threw his hands into the air and walked away. His whole body spun around and around before he spun off in another direction.

  Dean was left with a blank puzzle board in front of him, and a Sans staring at him in the distance.

 The shared a still glance, if only for a single moment, but in between blinks the skeleton was gone once more, and Dean still had more of this snowy place to pass through.

 Regardless, Dean could feel that someone was watching him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh its been ages. Sorry the brain isn't putting down these stories as fast as I want them.
> 
> I'm gonna try doing something to change things up for a bit, so stay tuned and thanks for the feedback!


	10. Angels and Dean, Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More things happen! I try to throw in more characters to get out of my writers block! Thanks again for the feedback and I'm sorry.
> 
> You're all cool people.

Dean felt his whole body buzz numbly as Papyrus decided to push the bridge weaponry away. The bombardment of nonsensical weapons messed with his head, and the danger involved messed with his body until Papyrus decided at the last second that it wasn’t worth it.

If Dean was being honest, this whole snowy world was starting to hurt his head. Not once, but a couple times did he think he saw some strange colored boxes appear in certain places. Even Sans’ identity was becoming difficult to process because every time he looked up, he was either there or not.

 When the skeletons had left for the moment, and Dean remained standing on the bridge. He knelt down onto the wood and swung his legs over the edge. His chest rose with a yawn like a paperweight that pressed against his chest as he stared down at the glove in his hand.

 He looked out, imagining staring at a sunset as he and Sam drove down the road, or even fireworks from back when they were even younger.

 But all he saw was grey. Greyness spread down towards the “horizon” and even if he saw some strange glowing in the distance, it was aggressive and ugly. A glowing, fake-orange that bubbled across the grey in front of him.

 These monsters seemed like they were keeping cheery, but there was so much gloom too.  In fact, only one monster really seemed to show it.

 But Dean had ditched him before getting on the bridge where he sat now.

 On a whim, he pulled the phone out of his pocket, and stared down at the archaic device. Toriel’s number was still highlighted under the text like a beacon calling Dean home, but he knew there would be no response.

 Dean felt all alone again, for some reason. It ached like a wolf bite clamped around his tiny heart.

 His SOUL almost shrunk to match as it hovered around his head like a little red halo.

 He really only had one motivation pushing him forward. All of his determination stemmed from his need to be with his brother, and to be honest that was starting to test him.

 The bridge kept swinging back and forth.

 “Can I keep going?” Dean murmured as he kicked his legs at the air beneath him.

 The wood of the bridge creaked, and Dean’s swinging froze as he felt the weight of the bridge change ever so slightly.

 “Oh Dean,” the voice chuckled. A deep tenor rung through the air. Dean could feel the voice ring through his spine as the red of his SOUL gained a bright white glow.

 Dean turned around, eyes widening when he saw a human-ish figure standing in front of him. His form looked so familiar as dark hair covered his head, and his eyes were overwhelmingly blue.

  Somehow Dean could recognize Michael’s chosen image, even if it wasn’t concealed in Adam’s body.

 How had that even happened.

 “M-Michael…” Dean stammered, “How the hell did you get here?”

 Six wings spread outwards from his back. Each was wide, nearly as wide as the bridge itself, and their white feathers were beyond whiteness. Dean noticed a pure, clean white SOUL hovering close to his own until the two were doing their own little spiral around each other.

 “Well… I’m not actually sure,” Michael shrugged, “This whole underground acts… a little strange, don’t you think? I’m not even sure the angels know this place exists.”

“What about God?”

 Michael shrugged, “He loved you more than he loved us, and he didn’t tell you anything.”

“That doesn’t answer the question. You’re supposed to be locked in a cage, and yet…”

 “You seriously underestimate your SOUL, don’t you? There’s a reason why I was supposed to take your body instead of anyone else’s.”

 “Right, the whole righteous man nonsense.” Dean sighed as he pressed off the bridge and started walking.

 Michael’s hand wrapped around Dean’s SOUL, and suddenly his whole body was warm. It was like a soft blanket or something as the angel started walking right beside him.

“Your SOUL is so interesting, Dean,” the angel smirked, “It should be in pieces. Everything you’ve gone through; every evil you’ve destroyed… and yet here it is. This little thing here is bright and whole and pure. Your determination has allowed you to defy fate numerous times. You literally cannot die until you allow yourself to die.”

 Dean could make out the silhouette of a town in the distance. A warm light poked out from behind a hill as Dean marched forward.

 “Y’know,” Dean smirked, “This has a very different tone when it’s coming from the guy who wanted my body to destroy the devil.”

 “Well that’s what I mean!” Michael shouted, “Fate said that I was supposed to use you to destroy Lucifer, and yet here you are walking around this world I’ve never seen, and I’m trapped in a cage with my brother while your brother was pulled out of this.”

 “That was Sam, and Cas. I didn’t do anything…”

 “That’s where you’re wrong,”

 Dean looked up.

 “Dean Winchester,” Michael announced. His eyes flashed blue with holy light, “Your Determination can purify worlds and save people’s SOULs, and it is something that keeps getting people to rally around it. “

 Then, he looked away for the moment, “Somehow, your determination always leads you to do good. Sam… he’s similar… but there’s something different about it. The motivation’s different.

 The point is: You can get through this world. I know it seems discouraging, but do not lose hope. These monsters… they’ve done nothing wrong. They’re just looking out for themselves like any other human. Keep trusting your gut, and let your SOUL lead the way.”

 His hand let go of Dean’s soul, and he appeared ready to leave. But before he did, he hovered over to a small sign sitting next to a box, signed a box hater, and he pulled the sign out of the ground and put it under his arm.

 Then, with one final wink towards Dean, the Angel of Righteousness disappeared in a flash, leaving Dean’s Soul with a familiar white glow, and a manly bandana blowing in the wind.

 “Trust my SOUL, huh…” he shrugged as his hand wrapped around the fabric of the bandana.

 With it, he saw a few more images flash. A brave child rushing across the bridge, jumping over trap after trap, literally throwing himself into the throes of danger because his Bravery drove him forward.

 Then one monster knocked his feet under from under him with a flash of magic, and another smashed him in half right at the gates to the town.

 An orange soul shattered, a pair of gloves left behind, and a bandana tied to a tree by a sad shop keeper who saw it all happen.

 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 The town was surprisingly calm based on how the skeletons had treated him when he showed up.

 In fact, it almost felt like these monsters had no idea he was a human.

 “Those scary humans all get stopped by Undyne! She’s so cool! I wanna be just like her one day!” One armless monster spoke up when Dean started chatting with them.

 The monster was actually kind of funny, and Dean found himself giggling and playing around with the kid. They chased each other around in the snow, and Dean let himself go a little bit.

 In fact, it was a few hours later when Dean finally stopped. He rubbed at his eyes and stared off in the direction of the tiny Inn that was set up.

 “Oh, no worries darlin’,” The bunny-looking monster gave him a wide grin when Dean dropped some coins for a room.

 He thought he managed to get a few hours despite the loud snoring of the other room. His hunter instincts were dulled in his child body.

  He found himself hiding his face in his hands in embarrassment. How much of him was a kid in all of this?

 The monsters treated him like he was used to, for the most part.

 Then again, he couldn’t really judge a monster’s age by its size. There was a massive bird monster with the face of a snowflake that only seemed to be a teenager. At least that’s what he said when he was asked.

 Dean just accepted that that was how it was.

 This theory only worked until he walked into the bar at the centre of town: Grillby’s.

 The place inside was a familiar atmosphere. Laid back music, a smoky atmosphere. Dean grinned when he saw all the dogs sitting around tables and chatting with each other.

 Then there was the owner. A sentient fire ball wearing a vest and glasses who was constantly wiping a glass as all bartenders should.

 He didn’t talk much, though.

 “Hey, uh, Grillby?” Dean called after him.

 “Don’t worry about him,” a mouse-like monster shrugged beside him, “he doesn’t talk much coz he loves doing his job. In fact, he only really says more than a sentence when Sans is around.”

“Sans comes here?” Dean tilted his head as he leaned on the bar.

“Oh yeah. He’s here during all of his breaks,” the creature chuckled.

 “And he has a _lot_ of breaks.” Another monster shouted from the back of the bar.

 “I think this is one of his favourite places,” the first monster replied, “at least he’s been stopping by here since him and his brother showed up. Actually, they just showed up out of nowhere one day.”

 “What do you think of them?” Dean asked cautiously. Hunting instincts reminded him about gaining information, and pressing past what he’d encountered so far.

 “Oh, they’re nice guys. One of ‘em… Papyrus. He’s pretty loud but his passion is encouraging. All he talks about is possibly becoming a Royal Guard one day. Sans… well. He’s Sans. Kinda lazy, really likes his brother… to be fair, I really don’t know anything about any of them.”

Dean gave a slight sigh. To be fair, he didn’t really expect to hear much about them. He didn’t really know what he was looking for. How to beat them? How to get past their defences?

 Maybe he would just have to crank up his charm and charm his way past them. Next to his hunting skill, flirting was the best option.

 So, as he walked passed the locked house at the end of the row, and towards a snow storm at the edge of Snowdin…

 He was pretty sure he had a strategy for the skeleton standing sentry.


	11. Bonetrousle

  White snow picked up around him, spinning around the field as Dean stepped away from the village. He could barely see his hand in front of his face as the snow roared around and tore at his skin, yet his body remained warm. His SOUL was still hovering carefully near his chest even as the white powder’s flight started to diminish.

 There was a tall shadow standing at the edge of his vision. A black obelisk blocking his goal as Dean came to a halt with the gloves strapped to his hands and a bandana wrapped around his hand.

 He was brave enough to deal with whatever tried to stop him. And he was brave enough to avoid killing them even if it was the easy way out.

 “HUMAN…” Papyrus’ voice cut the distance between them to a minimum, “I USED TO KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED TO DO, BUT NOW I’M CONFUSED…”

 “You’re confused?” Dean asked, “Well about what?”

“IT USED TO BE SO CLEAR TO ME. I WOULD CAPTURE A HUMAN, AND THEN I COULD BECOME PART OF THE ROYAL GUARD… BUT NO ONE TOLD ME THAT HUMANS WOULD BE SO COOL! OR THAT THEY WOULD LIKE PUZZLES SO MUCH!”

  Dean awkwardly looked away. It was somehow shameful that his attitude towards puzzles couldn’t even make it quite as close to Papyrus’, but he was more surprised by the effect he was having.

 He’d met monsters. Some of them had been forced to hide, been forced to defend themselves, and other circumstances had made it so they turned violent.

 But here’s this skeleton, who was free to walk around, and the actions of one human changed his mind on anything.

 “BUT I MUST DO MY JOB! I WILL CAPTURE A HUMAN! AND I WILL PROVE TO UNDYNE I’M READY TO BE PART OF THE ROYAL GUARD!”

 Dean’s SOUL spun to his chest as two long bones appeared in Papyrus’ hands.

 “PREPARE YOURSELF, HUMAN!”

 Bones flew across the ground before him, Dean stepped aside, and his SOUL rose above the bones to avoid any kind of damage.

 Dean had a hunch. Papyrus had basically confessed his adoration for Dean as a human, so maybe he could turn that to his advantage. Regardless of whatever age Dean was or whatever situation he was in; Dean could always flirt.

 “Hey! If you like hanging out with me, then maybe we should do it some more!”

 He blinked a couple times to take advantage of his cute, child-like eyelashes as Papyrus waved back dismissively.

 “ARE YOU ASKING ME Out ON A DATE? PLEASE! I DOUBT YOU COULD MEET ALL OF MY STANDARDS!”

There was a quiet pause.

“I can make spaghetti?” Dean blinked.

Papyrus gasped. Dean couldn’t stop the sneaky grin that emerged from his lips.

 “OH NO! YOU’RE MEETING ALL OF MY STANDARDS!”

 Papyrus’ next attack went the same as the previous. More bones that were easy to dodge, but the mood of the battle drastically changed.

 Now, it was just a game.

 “C’mon Paps, you’re moves aren’t ever gonna hit me if they’re trailing off the ground.”

 “WELL THEN, I GUESS YOU ARE READY FOR MY SECRET WEAPON!”

“Bring it on!”

 Papyrus brought his hands clser together and then clapped them like a hammer against wood. Dean heard the smack echo through his earlobes.

 Then his SOUL dropped into the snow. His heart turned blue and the arctic chill snapped through his spine.

 Dean stared at his SOUL for a single moment. When he tried to get it move, it would pop back into the air for a second, but then it would fall right back down. It was like the heart could jump, and that was it.

“YOU’RE BLUE NOW!”

 Now Dean understood why Papyrus’ attacks were so dangerous.

 The bones started coming quickly. Dean dodged to the left and the right, and his heart flew over bone after bone as they came in various sizes and heights. As his SOUL leapt, so did he. Papyrus swung in with a bone and Dean jumped over it, but each time he dodged, Papyrus got a little more excited.

 “YOU’VE DONE WELL SO FAR, DEAN, BUT NOW YOU MUST GET READY FOR MY SPECIAL ATTACK!”

 Dean slid across the snow like a train on tracks as he slowed to a halt. His SOUL dropped beside him heavily as Papyrus lifted his hand and pointed at Dean directly.

 Dean’s body tensed up. He swore that Papyrus’ eyes glowed yellow for just a second.

 But then all that came by was a little white furry dog that sat in front of Dean with a bone in his mouth and a wagging tail.

 He pat the little furry canine for a moment as Papyrus literally picked his jaw off the ground.

 “NO! YOU DUMB DOG! YOU RUINED MY SPECIAL ATTACK!”

 The little pup yipped loudly as it hid behind Dean. Its little ears buzzed for a second as Dean leaned down and picked him up.

 The dog didn’t object.

 “That’s gonna happen when you leave a bunch of bones around with a dog.”

 Papyrus’s eyes rolled in its sockets as the dog leapt out of Dean’s arms and ran to the side. It took on a cheerleader role as it yipped excitedly for Dean.

 “FINE… I’LL JUST HAVE TO USE A NORMAL ATTACK THEN!”

 Whatever this attack was, “normal” was the last word that he expected to use. A flurry of bones came towards Dean as he dipped and tucked through each strike and throw. His blue SOUL leapt over obstacles and kept spinning around just as he did. At the final moment, one gigantic bone came rushing towards him with a shadow long enough to reach back to Snowdin. Dean’s eyes were frozen in absent terror before he decided to do the one thing he could.

 He had to risk it. With a sprint he rushed forward. His SOUL was already lifting off the ground in preparation to shoot for the stars.

 In a spur of last minute decision making, Dean hopped for his SOUL. His hands wrapped around its glowing surface as it shot higher and higher into the air. Dean’s feet touched the tip of the coarse material before he floated gently down on the other side, landing directly in front of Papyrus just as his SOUL flashed back to his typical red color right in front of the Skele-boned warrior.

 “Heh…” Dean panted… “Is that… all you got?”

 “HUMAN, I SUPPOSE YOU HAVE PROVEN YOURSELF,” Papyrus grinned, “THIS… IT MAY KEEP ME FROM BEING A ROYAL GUARD, BUT… I FEEL AS THOUGH WE HAVE BECOME FRIENDS.”

 “Friends through combat? I dig it.” Dean smirked.

 Papyrus’ grin went wide as he grabbed Dean’s hand and started shaking it, “OH THIS IS SO EXCITING! I HAVE NEVER BEEN FRIENDS WITH A HUMAN BEFORE!”

 “And I’ve definitely never had any skeleton friends. There was a vampire once.”

 “OH REALLY? THERE ARE VAMPIRES ON THE SURFACE?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

 Dean chuckled with the tall skeleton who also gave a rattily “NYEH-HEH-HEH.” As Dean remembered the kindness of this monster.”

 Somehow Dean wondered if it were even possible for this being to cause him harm.

 As the two chattered and Papyrus grew excited about his date, the pair didn’t notice that another skeleton stood watching from a distance, and a figure with vibrant glowin wings stood beside him.

 “Well, at least this timeline didn’t turn out as a catastrophe,” Michael sighed as his back turned to the scene.

 Sans’ relief was apparent in the softness of his eyes, “yeah. looks like we got a good one over on this end… strange universe for it though since there are some monsters on the surface.”

 “Call it what you will. My father didn’t really enjoy discussing the multiverse.”

 “but with how close the underground is to the cage, you just had to come out and see it, didn’t you?”

Michael’s wings stiffened, “I’ve seen my righteous vessel’s hands stained by blood once before. I just hope that this little foray into childhood might help him to forgive himself.

 “yeah. and maybe he can make this world better too,” Sans agreed. Then, the dots in his eyes flickered away, “or we’ll just have to do it all over again.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still alive and ticking! Sorry it's been so long since an update.
> 
> I do plan on finishing this, and my brief venture into Enis territory should only be a few chapters so that I can hopefully finish this whole adventure. Please forgive my less-than-righteous soul for my tardiness XD.
> 
> Again, any feedback is really appreciated, and I love the feedback I've already recieved.
> 
> Thanks so much!


	12. A Date with a Skeleton and A Walk to Waterfall

 Dean wanted to hide in a snowbank as he approached the door of the skeletons’ house. His SOUL was flickering lighter than darker, over and over again as it imitated his fast heartbeat.

 Yes, he agreed to go on a date with Papyrus, but now that it was happening, he couldn’t help but feel a little strange about it.

 This couldn’t be any different than sleeping with a girl, right?

God, was Papyrus gonna expect something to happen?

 The door swung open as he stomped back out.

 “AH! HUMAN! I’M SO GLAD YOU COULD MAKE IT!”

“Heh… wouldn’t miss it…”

“WELL, I HAVE THE PERFECT PLACE FOR THIS ‘DATE’ TO HAPPEN! FOLLOW ME!”

Papyrus took off at a sprint down the snow, grabbing Dean by the hand as he hauled him back down towards the center of Snowdin. Then, without even stopping, he spun around again and started running backwards. Dean’s feet slipped away from the ground for the moment, but the rest of the monsters merely smiled.

It looked like this was something that happened pretty often, or they were just used to the skeleton’s antics.

 “AND HERE WE ARE!”

 They stopped right in front of the skeletons’ house, “WHAT BETTER PLACE THAN MY HOME!”

 Papyrus trounced through the doorway, leaving Dean to stare awkwardly at the doorway as though it would swallow him whole.

 He was still trying to figure out exactly what he was getting himself into. But the defeatist side of him just demonstrated that he had no other choice.

 Their house was, for all intents in purposes, pretty standard.

 Well, he thought that until he saw the mile-high sink or a sock with numerous sticky notes stuck all over it, or the strange, colorful lights that burst from underneath Sans’ door.

 It suited them. The strangeness of this shared home reflected them like a mirror. Down to the ridiculous dog that scrambled all over the place on occasion.

 Actually, did it leave through the door?

 He took his time looking around. Papyrus was ecstatic as he watched Dean wander around their living room.

 The first thing that caught Dean’s attention was a thick book to the side of the couch. The cover was detailed with numerous characters and what looked like physics equations. Now Dean never was a school guy. He didn’t really care for it when he knew how dangerous the world was outside those brick walls.

 A desk was never meant for him anyway. He needed to get off his butt, walk around on his feet, but he did like a good book now and then, especially some with a (dare he say it) challenging puzzle.

 He did chuckle a little when he opened it and saw the cover of a joke book.

 Then he kept digging until his brain started to spin around how many layers could be dug into this book and he needed to drop it before his head blew up.

 “This is a cool place,” Dean nodded.

“NOW IF ONLY I COULD GET SANS TO CLEAN UP AFTER HIM SELF! THAT LAZYBONES!”

 Dean laughed generously.

  Once he’d received the lay of the land, Papyrus led him into his bedroom, where Dean had to try very hard to ignore his childish glee. There was something so… innocent about Papyrus’ racecar bed and row upon row of action figures that struck a melancholic chord inside him. These were the thing’s he’d always wanted Sam to have when they were kids. These were the things that, at some level, _he_ wanted.

  “ONE DAY WHEN WE CAN RETURN TO THE SURFACE…” Papyrus muttered, “THEN I’LL DRIVE A CAR JUST LIKE THIS ONE!”

 Dean smiled, “there’s nothing better than driving, trust me!”

“OH? YOU CAN DRIVE!? WOWEE, THAT’S AMAZING!”

 “Well, y’know, I mean, I used to be a little bigger than this.”

Stupid smaller body.

 “CAN HUMANS CHANGE THEIR SIZE?”

“Not normally,” Dean shrugged, “but, uh… this is kind of special circumstances.”

Papyrus gave a subtle nod as the pair took a seat on his race-themed bed, and for the rest of that time, they just… talked. Papyrus started discussing his frustrations with an online troll he kept running into (Dean had a sinking suspicion that _another_ skeleton was involved), and they kind of just let things happen. Dean found himself laughing at the way the skeleton seemed to go all out. He tried following this book for a moment, some trash about dating, but Dean got him to ditch the thing for a little bit.

 His SOUL hovered around the entire time, bouncing up and down in the air as if nothing would pull it down.

 “WELL HUMAN, I SUPPOSE THAT IT IS BEST WE DID NOT FOLLOW THE DATING FORMAT BECAUSE I AM AFRAID THAT… I CANNOT RECIPROCATE THE INTENSE FEELINGS OF ATTRACTION YOU HAVE FOR ME!”

 Dean rolled his eyes and hid a cheeky grin, “Then I guess it’s best for us to be friends.”

“THAT IS A GREAT IDEA!” Papyrus cheered, “HERE, PASS ME YOUR PHONE.”

 Dean pulled the small dark brick from his pocket and handed it to the chipper, tall skeleton. In a flash the phone was open and his fingers were flying across the keys.

 “HERE!”

 He handed it back, “THAT WAY YOU CAN CALL ME WHENEVER YOU NEED HELP! SURELY A HUMAN COULD BENEFIT FROM MY BRILLIANT ADVICE ABOUT THE UNDERGROUND!”

“Actually, that would be a lot of help. Thanks, Papyrus.”

 The skeleton’s trademark grin seemed to grow even larger as he walked Dean out back onto the porch and pointed in the other direction.

 “IF YOU WANT TO DIVE DEEPER, HUMAN,” he announced, “THEN CONTINUE FORWARD ONTO WATERFALL. SANS HAS ANOTHER CHECKPOINT OVER THERE, THOUGH I DOUBT THAT LAZYBONES IS WORKING AT ALL!”

 Dean nodded as his foot patted into the white snow, and with a final wave goodbye, he marched back towards where he fought Papyrus originally.

 As he walked by, there was still large bones sticking out of the ground and other projectiles still stuck in the snow. The only change was a small, white dog that was gnawing on the side of the largest bone in the area. It shared a glance with Dean, and he stopped dead in his tracks.

 The dog leapt away from the bone and bounded over to Dean for a single moment, then he started to circle around him over and over.

 “Hey boy, what’s happening?” Dean asked. With his car miles away, dogs were not a worry for him.

 The dog paused for a second as Dean’s SOUL bounded toward its nose, and the dog sniffed at it for a minute.

 With one final nod, the dog bounded away, skipping behind the giant bone again. Dean followed after it for a second, but when he got there, it was gone.

 Instead, stuck in the snow at his feet was a tape cassette, still in an old plastic case as Dean leaned down to pick it up.

 It was his own tape, back from home. He furrowed his brow at its existence. And Kansas? How did it even get there? Especially left lying out in the snow. You had to treat good bands with respect.

 He pushed the tape into his back pocket, and his eyes wandered back up to the ceiling above him, and the boundless darkness kept the world above feeling like it was light years away. He shook his head, and his hands clenched into tight fists.

 He was getting back. No stupid barrier was going to stop him from getting back to his family.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

His march began and continued further and further away from Snowdin. The wintery cold started to filter away ever so slightly, and whatever artificial light existed started to fade around him. As he marched onward, all he could find was the calming smell of rainwater saturating the world, and two sounds mixing together in an unnatural harmony. The sound of endless, cascading water, and the quiet whispers of many voices. Yet as he came to what could only be described as the opening of a cave, all he could see was this one fish-like man standing next to a wall, and another sentry station not unlike the many he’d passed on his way to Snowdin.

 “Hey!” A young voice shouted from behind him. Dean turned around just in time for a young monster kid with no arms bumped into Dean and fell backwards.

 Dean opened his mouth to offer a response, but the monster was back on his feet before Dean could say anything.

 “Sorry, I dunno if we talked in town, but I wanted to sneak away! You’ll never guess who’s coming here!” The monster kid’s tone was chipper and his disposition like sunshine in this desperate cave.

 So Dean took the bait.

“Who’s coming?”

The monster kid rolled its eyes, “UNDYNE! Duhhh! She’s the Captain of the Royal Guard, and she’s sooooooo strong! I heard that she even fought a human once, and DESTROYED them! Man, Undyne is the coolest! I wish I could be like her…”

Dean blinked, “She killed a human once?”

The monster kid’s mannerisms matched a perplexed bird, “Well, yeah… She was defending the King! He’s such a pushover that he needs someone super tough like Undyne to protect him.”

 Suddenly Dean felt his fists clenching. Was this monster just defending the king? Then he shouldn’t have to worry about defeating either of them. He was only trying to break through the barrier after all. But still… even the name Undyne was enough to send a shiver through his spine.

 “Anyway,” the monster continued, “I’m gonna go ahead and see if I can see her. Ohhh that would be so cool!”

 The kid scampered off before Dean could say anything, leaving him alone and stranded in a strange blue grass and flowing puddles of water.

 He took a deep breath.

 “hey kiddo,” a familiar voice wavered, “how’s it hanging?”

 Dean looked up, and Sans was back at another sentry stand with the trademark smile stamped on his face.

“thanks for hanging out with my brother,” he chuckled, “man, was he looking forward to that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for how late this was. It was a struggle of both inspiration and a necessity to finish school for the term, so this stuff had to be put on hold.  
> Anyway, here's a transition chapter for you guys as I start to swirl in some other things. 
> 
> Again, thank you for your feedback among other things.

**Author's Note:**

> Something I thought about when playing Undertale. How would our favourite hunter react to this strange world of monsters? Some of you may not agree with the path I'm making Dean take, but I think the events influencing Dean's journey will affect how Dean responds.
> 
> Any feedback would be appreciated! It only gets better from here!


End file.
